[Senate Hearing 112-834]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 112-834
THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION:
A PLATFORM FOR RESEARCH, COLLABORATION, AND DISCOVERY
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HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE,
SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JULY 25, 2012
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
_____
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20402-0001
SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia, Chairman
DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas,
JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts Ranking
BARBARA BOXER, California OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine
BILL NELSON, Florida JIM DeMINT, South Carolina
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington JOHN THUNE, South Dakota
FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi
MARK PRYOR, Arkansas JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri ROY BLUNT, Missouri
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
TOM UDALL, New Mexico PATRICK J. TOOMEY, Pennsylvania
MARK WARNER, Virginia MARCO RUBIO, Florida
MARK BEGICH, Alaska KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire
DEAN HELLER, Nevada
Ellen L. Doneski, Staff Director
James Reid, Deputy Staff Director
John Williams, General Counsel
Richard M. Russell, Republican Staff Director
David Quinalty, Republican Deputy Staff Director
Rebecca Seidel, Republican General Counsel and Chief Investigator
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on July 25, 2012.................................... 1
Statement of Senator Nelson...................................... 1
Statement of Senator Hutchison................................... 2
Statement of Senator Boozman..................................... 4
Statement of Senator Rubio....................................... 40
Witnesses
Donald R. Pettit, Astronaut, National Aeronautics and Space
Administration................................................. 6
William H. Gerstenmaier, Associate Administrator, Human
Exploration and Operations, National Aeronautics and Space
Administration................................................. 7
Prepared statement........................................... 8
Thomas Reiter, Director, Human Spaceflight and Operations,
European Space Agency.......................................... 13
Prepared statement........................................... 15
James D. Royston, Interim Executive Director, Center for the
Advancement of Science in Space................................ 18
Prepared statement........................................... 20
Appendix
Hon. John D. Rockefeller IV, U.S. Senator from West Virginia,
prepared statement............................................. 53
Response to written question submitted by Hon. Bill Nelson to:
Donald R. Pettit............................................. 53
William H. Gerstenmaier...................................... 55
Thomas Reiter................................................ 55
James D. Royston............................................. 56
Response to written question submitted to William H. Gerstenmaier
by:
Hon. Amy Klobuchar........................................... 56
Hon. Mark Warner............................................. 57
Response to written question submitted by Hon. Amy Klobuchar to
James D. Royston............................................... 58
THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION:
A PLATFORM FOR RESEARCH,
COLLABORATION, AND DISCOVERY
----------
WEDNESDAY, JULY 25, 2012
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room
SR-253, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Bill Nelson,
presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BILL NELSON,
U.S. SENATOR FROM FLORIDA
Senator Nelson. Good morning, everybody.
Thank you for coming.
Senator Hutchison and I wanted, along with Senator Boozman,
who is our Ranking Member of this subcommittee--John, come on
over here closer.
[Laughter.]
Senator Nelson. The three of us wanted to have this hearing
today so that the American people know what is going on in
space. That there is this extraordinary contraption that is
about 240 miles above the Earth that is as large as from the
end of one end zone of a football field to the other. That is
120 yards. And as wide as a football field.
And if you will just look at the NASA model there, you will
see that that is certainly true. If you look at all the
components there, you will see that part of it is Russian, of
which the Soyuz docks there, which is the vehicle that comes
and goes and most recently, since the Space Shuttle was retired
a year ago, is the vehicle that we have delivering crew until
we have the American rockets that are man-rated with all the
redundancies and escape systems that are being developed as we
speak.
But in addition, we have a number of different payloads
that are delivering cargo, the most recent of which was the
successful flight and successful delivery of cargo by one of
the American commercial ventures, SpaceX. And as we speak, we
have already rendezvoused a Japanese space module that is
delivering cargo, and it will be docking within a matter of
days.
There is also a crew on a Soyuz that has launched. And have
they docked yet? Oh, it is the Progress module, which is a
Russian module. It is in the vicinity of the Space Station, and
they are working out the sequencing for the delivery of cargo
from the Japanese module as well as the Russian Progress
module.
So there are a number of these payloads that are going up.
In the case of SpaceX, it also had the delivery coming down of
experiments that were loaded onto the spacecraft that returned
successfully to Earth.
Now, I want to toot the horn of Senator Hutchison, but I
want her to hear me tooting her horn.
[Laughter.]
Senator Nelson. Senator Hutchison is responsible for the
American laboratory module to be designated a National
Laboratory. Our national labs are some of the great assets of
this country. Los Alamos is just one, for example.
The International Space Station, the American module, is
designated a National Laboratory. And part of what the three of
us wanted today to do is to have this testimony from the people
who best can tell us, including our American astronaut who just
returned and who has spent in the course of three space flights
over one year in orbit.
And Dr. Pettit is going to share with us a number of these
experiments and real-life things that are beginning to happen,
such as the vaccines that we have already mentioned in the last
hearing that we had on the progress of the overall space
program.
So, with that, I have other comments that I will make later
on. Senator Hutchison, let me turn to you and then to Senator
Boozman.
STATEMENT OF HON. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON,
U.S. SENATOR FROM TEXAS
Senator Hutchison. OK. I just wanted to open--I just wanted
to open today's hearing because we have lost a space pioneer.
Sally Ride did so much to promote space, and even though she
tried to get out of the spotlight, she just attracted so much
attention because she was interesting, she was committed to
physics and science, and she was committed to getting girls to
start taking the STEM courses.
And when I wrote a book in 2004, I did chapters on the
women pioneers in different fields. So I did education,
politics, government, sports, and aviation. And then I
interviewed women who were still breaking barriers in the same
fields.
So my aviation chapter was Amelia Earhart and Jackie
Cochran. And my interview was Sally Ride. What could be more
perfect than the first women to actually fly the long distances
and prove women could be great pilots, and then the first woman
in space?
And in my interview, I asked different questions about what
was the most important trait for her success, and she said it
was the ability to work with other people, which she found very
helpful as the first woman astronaut. And I said, ``Oh gosh,
that is interesting. I would have thought you would have said
perseverance.'' And she said, ``Well, that is a close second.''
And then I asked her what was her most helpful childhood
memory, and she said, ``You know, it is funny. It was actually
an issue in school, and I got discouraged by something. I don't
remember what. But I came home and I was very down, and my
father basically said, `Well, you have just got to reach for
the stars.' ''
She said, ``That is ridiculous to think about right now,''
and she said, ``but it did happen.'' So I think we all owe her
a great debt of gratitude, and I just wanted to start this
hearing by recognizing how much she gave.
I want to thank both the Chairman and the Ranking Member of
the Subcommittee for being here because Senator Nelson and I
have done so much to keep the emphasis and the importance of
NASA in the forefront. I am a budget cutter. I am a person that
wants to set the top line of a budget, but then it is so
important that we set the priorities for what goes in that
budget.
And Senator Nelson and I, and many others, have tried to
assure that we don't eat our seed corn, that we continue
research, that we continue to reach for the stars, to go beyond
where we are now. And NASA is the agency that can do that.
And there have been people who have tried to abolish NASA,
frankly. And I think that going forward, I will be certainly
very comfortable with the ranking member, John Boozman, who has
done a great job of learning the issues and where we are. And
he has hit the ground running, and I am so appreciative for
Senator Boozman and his interest.
Let me say that establishing our part of the Space Station
as an American national laboratory was a great accomplishment
in that it opened the Space Station for research from outside
entities. And it can be private companies. It can be
universities. It can be opened to anyone who is going to do
research that can only be done in space. And we all know you
can only do certain experiments in space because of the
microgravity conditions, and you can't duplicate that on Earth.
So finding out what is out there is so important for our
future. And we have seen what exploring space has done for us
and national security, being able to put satellites up there
and do satellite surveillance, satellite-guided missiles has
helped our national security so much.
But now we have this laboratory, and one of the issues of
this hearing is going to be what we are doing there and
certainly are we going to extend it further than 2020, or is
2020 its life and what are we going to do to fully utilize it?
I was at Johnson Space Center a few months ago, and I saw
the hits detected on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. One of
the almost-casualties of the budget cutting without
establishing priorities was that we were told that there
wouldn't be room for the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to be
taken into space by a former NASA Administrator, and many of us
fought back.
And Dr. Sam Ting fought back, the Nobel Laureate at MIT,
who felt that we had to have that up there to detect the cosmic
rays and try to determine if there is dark matter and what it
is and what effect it might have on the expansion of the
universe. And I am sitting in the Johnson Space Center, looking
at the hits on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, and it is so
far 18 billion hits of cosmic rays. More than even Sam Ting
thought we would get in this timespan.
And so, this is a very basic science that we are doing
there that could lead to any number of things in the
determination of what the universe is, and also if there is
dark energy, is it something that can be harnessed? No telling.
And as Dr. Ting so aptly points out, almost all of the
major research that we have done since we went to NASA and set
NASA up, everything that we went into to research was for a
purpose that is not what we got, but what we got was even more
important. And that is why continuing the priority of NASA and
space exploration is so important for us and our European
partners, for our own quality of life and capabilities to
expand.
So, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for holding this
hearing. I did request this hearing because I want to know what
we are doing up there.
And so, I am looking forward to hearing from all of you,
from your different perspectives. But I do hope that as I am
going out the exit door that we are able to excite the American
people, as we have in the past, on what the future is, and I
thank you all for being here.
Senator Nelson. Senator Boozman?
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BOOZMAN,
U.S. SENATOR FROM ARKANSAS
Senator Boozman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And I have a very eloquent statement that I would like to
put in the record in the interest of time, with your
permission.
But I appreciate Senator Hutchison mentioning Sally Ride. I
have got three daughters that are all grown now and have done
well and very independent. But looking back, it is individuals
like this, the example that you truly can do anything that you
want as a female now, that has certainly not always been the
case. And so, again, we so appreciate her example in so many
different ways.
I want to thank you two, Senator Nelson and Senator
Hutchison, for really championing this for so many years.
Senator Hutchison mentioned the ability to get along as
something that was so important, and certainly you two have
modeled that in working together so closely, creating a very
bipartisan group not only here, but also--and it is difficult--
working with our House colleagues such that we have this
bipartisan bicameral situation, which truly is unique.
There is not very many situations like this. So I do
appreciate your all's leadership so very much.
I am going to be running in and out. I have got a markup in
EPW, and so in a little bit, I have got to sneak out in just a
second. In fact, Senator Boxer and Senator Inhofe will grab me
by the throat if I don't get over there in a minute.
It is a unique committee. We are going to be voting on the
Great Apes Act, and then you have also the Safe Chemicals Act.
So there is a little something for everybody over there. But we
do appreciate you all being here, and we certainly appreciate
your efforts.
Thank you.
Senator Nelson. Sally Ride flew twice. She flew in 1983 and
1984. And I will never forget that launch the first time, she
being the first American woman in space. There was a chorus
that went up, ``Ride, Sally Ride.'' And I think she captured
the spirit of America in her participation in the space
program.
She was a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. And after she
left NASA, she never stopped working in order to inspire the
next generation of explorers.
Now since the subject today is the Space Station, this
thing started when a Navy SEAL, Bill Shepherd, opened the hatch
on November 2, 2000, and he floated from a cramped capsule into
the Space Station. And thus, he began as the commander of
Expedition 1, and the International Space Station has been
continuously occupied ever since.
The Act that Kay Bailey was mentioning a while ago extended
the ISS operations until 2020. It authorized that. But once you
hear about what is going on today on the Space Station, I think
it is very shortsighted to think that this thing is going to be
cutoff in 2020. But that the research will continue on this
extraordinary facility, of which it has a pressurized volume as
large as a Boeing 747. That is how big it is internally.
And then, once we are at the end of the design life of it
in low-Earth orbit, some 240 miles up, circling the globe every
hour and a half, what is the likely future for it? Perhaps to
boost it further, maybe to the Lagrangian point between the
Earth and the Moon, which is the point that the Earth's gravity
stops and the Moon's gravity starts. Or possibly that
Lagrangian point on the other side of the Moon.
And maybe as a future base, parts of it--not necessarily
the whole thing, but maybe parts of it--could be used in that
situation then as a way station if we decide in our future
exploration that we want to go to and from the Moon's surface
again. These are the possibilities.
And so, today, we are very fortunate to have a very
distinguished panel of witnesses to talk about the
accomplishments. Bill Gerstenmaier is NASA's Associate
Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations. We look
forward to continuing the discussion that we started last month
about the commercial space operations to and from the Space
Station and the scientific discoveries that we talked about
last time.
We also have Thomas Reiter. He is from the European Space
Agency, one of our partners. This is the International Space
Station. And he is one of two Space Station astronauts with us
today on this panel. He spent over 5 months on the ISS, and he
is the European Space Agency's Director of Human Space Flight
and Operations. And he is going to share ESA's perspective on
operations and research aboard the ISS.
From the Center for Advancement of Science in Space, we
have James Royston, and he serves as the Interim Executive
Director. CASIS is a nonprofit organization working with NASA
to manage a significant portion of the ISS research. And he
will touch on how CASIS will help us get the most out of our
Nation's investment in the Space Station.
And then we have Dr. Donald Pettit, who just returned on
July 1. This last time he was on the station was 193 days. He
has flown in space three times, as I mentioned earlier, and he
has lived aboard the station twice. His creativity and his
technical wizardry make him an outstanding example of what the
human element brings to research and discovery.
So I am going to take the privilege of the chair, and I
have already consulted with Senator Hutchison.
Dr. Pettit, we are going to start with you. We would like
to hear from you.
Welcome home.
STATEMENT OF DONALD R. PETTIT, ASTRONAUT, NATIONAL AERONAUTICS
AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
Dr. Pettit. Thank you, Senator.
It is an honor to be here and to be able to tell stories of
what it is like to be in space. There are 7 billion people that
live on this planet. There are 6 people currently that can call
space their home, and it is an incredible privilege to be part
of the 6 people that are currently living off of this planet.
And with that privilege comes a responsibility when you
return to tell stories about what it means to explore. And this
is pretty much universal to any explorer that comes back in
whatever period of exploration that they belong to. They tell
stories. They talk about the meaning of the exploration. They
talk about why we explore, and they incite ideas and thoughts
in people who don't have the opportunity to go off and do that
exploration themselves.
And this hinges on frontiers. Space is very much a
frontier. We have frontiers all around Earth. They could be
under the stage of a microscope. It could be through the
eyepiece of a telescope, bottom of the ocean, in the Arctic and
Antarctic regions. There are frontiers that surround us.
Space happens to be one of many frontiers we can explore.
It happens to be the frontier where I am spending my career
exploring. And in this frontier, your Earth-honed intuition
does not apply. Things don't work the way that you think they
should. The answers are not in the back of the book.
And this makes a place that is rich in discovery. And I
think that is one reason why we go to these frontiers. And when
we go to these frontiers, we can see things that you never
imagine because nature has an imagination that is greater than
what human beings have. And the only way we will know what is
there is by virtue of going and seeing for ourselves what
happens to be in this frontier, and from that, it can enrich
our minds and tickle our imaginations.
And initially, these observations enrich your society, and
eventually, you will make technology and other discoveries,
other advances that will enhance the standard of living and
enhance the arts, enhance theater, film, literature. It will
embed itself into your society. And I think you can conclude
that exploration in these frontiers is a metric for how viable
your particular country happens to be.
I am happy to be here and answer any questions that you
have.
Thank you.
Senator Nelson. We will get into that.
Mr. Gerstenmaier?
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM H. GERSTENMAIER, ASSOCIATE
ADMINISTRATOR, HUMAN EXPLORATION AND OPERATIONS, NATIONAL
AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Gerstenmaier. Thank you very much.
The title for this hearing, ``The International Space
Station: A Platform for Research, Collaboration, and
Discovery,'' I believe is extremely fitting. Through the
discussion today, I hope we will all gain a deeper
understanding of the amazing facility in space that we have
created.
I also hope we gain through concrete examples an
understanding of what is happening every day onboard the
International Space Station. We are not simply talking about
enabling research. We are really doing research every day
onboard the Space Station.
The station is an amazing international research facility.
The ISS major assembly is complete, and we are beginning to see
significant research activity. Research was done during the
assembly phase, but now we are focusing on the research itself.
Today, the focus on research, and we are trying to find
ways to make it easier for the researchers to get their
experiments to ISS. We are also trying to get the word out
about the research facilities that are in place onboard the
Space Station.
You know, there are fluid experiment racks, combustion
racks, glove boxes, Earth observation facilities, material
processing facilities, a vacuum interface, ample power and data
interfaces, to name a few of the major facilities that are
onboard the Space Station. There is also a crew available to
perform the research and interact with the experiments.
This is a tremendous research capability, and it is present
in a high-vacuum and low-gravity environment of low-Earth
orbit. A facility like this has never existed for use by
researchers throughout time or throughout the world.
ISS can enable technology development, understanding of the
human system performance in microgravity, and enable both
fundamental and applied research. ISS also offers a unique
capability for commercial companies to test the advantages of
microgravity research to their industry.
Commercial companies can experiment at very low cost to
determine if there is a competitive advantage for them over
other companies that do not take advantage of space-based
research. ISS could enable development of a new economy based
on space-based research.
Today, we are seeing a real increase in the research on
ISS. As I discussed earlier, there are combustion experiments
aimed at understanding the fundamentals of combustion. This may
allow better and more efficient combuster designs. The Alpha
Magnetic Spectrometer that was discussed earlier is looking for
dark matter, and that may ultimately help us understand the
very beginnings of the universe.
There are fluids experiments. And as we sit here today and
you mentioned, the HTV, the Japanese cargo vehicle, is
approaching the Space Station for docking on Friday with a
large number of research experiments.
The Japanese cargo vehicle is carrying a system to deploy
microsatellites from the Space Station. It is carrying a remote
Earth observation camera system to monitor disaster areas on
the Earth. It is carrying an aquatic habitat that will monitor
the development of fish in microgravity. It is carrying a next
generation of software-defined radios, where the radio can
support multiple frequencies by just simply changing the
software inside the radio.
And last, it is carrying two Lenovo YouTube Spacelab
student science experiments to the Space Station. These
students came to Washington, and their experiments were
selected to fly on the ISS by a team of judges that included
Stephen Hawking.
They did this activity through the Internet. They
participated with many folks here, and the exciting thing was
they got to meet with Sunita Williams, who is presently onboard
the Space Station. So, Sunita, who they actually interfaced
with and talked to, will now be performing their experiments
onboard Space Station this fall.
So it is amazing that these students were here in
Washington in the spring. Their experiments are flying to
station here this summer, and their experiments will be
performed on Space Station in the fall. This is direct evidence
that the Space Station team can provide research opportunities
in a very timely manner for folks out in the research
community.
Again, this is an amazing time for space-based research.
ISS is showing that it is an amazing research facility. ISS can
inspire students and engineers to think differently, as Don
talked about. And we will continue to make it easier for
research to get to ISS and be performed there.
We are showing that ISS is an amazing research capability
for this nation and the world. We cannot predict what results
will come from the ISS and long-duration space-based research,
but we can and we are making this facility available to a
talented research community.
True advances come from discovery, and ISS is a platform
for discovery. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gerstenmaier follows:]
Prepared Statement of William H. Gerstenmaier, Associate Administrator,
Human Exploration and Operations, National Aeronautics and Space
Administration
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today to discuss how we are using and
benefitting from the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS,
created and maintained by an international partnership with Canada,
Europe, Japan, and Russia, represents an unparalleled capability for
human space-based research that cannot be pursued on Earth, as well as
a platform for the development of exploration technologies. It provides
a research and development (R&D) opportunity that allows us to
investigate biological and physical processes in a very different
environment than that obtainable on Earth. Observing from, and
experimenting in, the environment of ISS gives us a chance to learn
about our world and biological and physical processes from a very
different frame of reference. We have been using the unique ``reference
point'' of the ISS to advance Science, Technology, Engineering, and
Mathematics (STEM) efforts as well.
The ISS is also an international research facility. The three major
science laboratories aboard the ISS--the U.S. Destiny, European
Columbus, and Japanese Kibo facilities--as well as external testbeds
and observatory sites, enable astronauts to conduct a wide variety of
experiments in the unique, microgravity and ultra-vacuum environment of
low Earth orbit (LEO). The ISS supports research across a diverse array
of disciplines, including high-energy particle physics, Earth remote
sensing and geophysics experiments, molecular and cellular
biotechnology experiments, human physiology research (including bone
and muscle research), radiation research, plant and cultivation
experiments, combustion research, fluid research, materials science
experiments, and biological investigations. It is also a place to
conduct technology demonstrations and development efforts. R&D
conducted aboard the ISS holds the promise of next-generation
technologies, not only those directly related to NASA's exploration
efforts, but also those with numerous terrestrial applications, as
well. The ISS will provide these opportunities to scientists,
engineers, and technologists through at least 2020.
Beyond being a feat of unparalleled engineering and construction,
as well as international collaboration, the ISS is a place to learn how
to live and work in space over a long period of time and foster new
markets for commercial products and services. The ISS will be critical
to NASA's future missions of exploration beyond LEO, and the ISS offers
many unique benefits to the citizens of the United States and the
world.
As stated in my testimony before this Committee last month, the
success of our industry partners in providing commercial cargo and crew
endeavors is critical to ensuring the effective utilization of the ISS.
U.S. commercial cargo resupply capability will ensure the continued
operation of the ISS and the full utilization of its formidable
research facilities as a U.S. National Laboratory. American commercial
crew transportation and rescue services will enable the United States
to fly our astronauts to and from Station, end our sole reliance on
foreign governments, and provide needed redundancy in the system.
Partnering with the commercial space industry to provide access to LEO
is enabling the Agency to increasingly focus on developing systems for
sending astronauts on missions of exploration into deep space, while
promoting the development of an economy in LEO.
The ISS will continue to meet NASA's mission objective to prepare
for the next steps in human space exploration. The ISS is NASA's only
long-duration flight analog for future human deep space missions, and,
as such, it provides an invaluable laboratory for research with direct
application to the exploration requirements that address human risks
associated with deep space missions. It is the only space-based
multinational research and technology testbed available to identify and
quantify risks to human health and performance, identify and validate
potential risk mitigation techniques, and develop countermeasures for
future human exploration.
Benefits to Humanity and Growth in ISS Utilization
Almost as soon as the ISS was habitable, researchers began using it
to study the impact of microgravity and other space effects. In the
physical and biological sciences arena, the ISS is using microgravity
conditions to understand the effect of the microgravity environment on
microbial systems, fluid physics, combustion science and materials
processing, as well as environmental control and fire safety
technologies. The ISS also provides a test-bed for studying,
developing, and testing new technologies for use in future exploration
missions. Although each space station partner has distinct agency goals
for station research, each partner collectively shares a unified goal
to extend the resulting knowledge for the betterment of humanity. There
are already demonstrated benefits in the areas of human health,
telemedicine, education and Earth observations from space. Vaccine
development research, station-generated images that assist with
disaster relief and farming, and education programs that inspire future
scientists, engineers and space explorers highlight just some of the
many examples of research that can benefit humanity.
ISS crews are conducting human medical research to develop
knowledge in the areas of: clinical medicine, human physiology,
cardiovascular research, bone and muscle health, neurovestibular
medicine, diagnostic instruments and sensors, advanced ultrasound,
exercise and pharmacological countermeasures, food and nutrition,
immunology and infection, exercise systems, and human behavior and
performance. Many investigations conducted aboard ISS will have direct
application to terrestrial medicine. For example, the growing senior
population may benefit from experiments in the areas of bone and muscle
health, immunology, and from the development of advanced diagnostic
systems.
The transition from the ISS assembly and spares pre-positioning
phase is now allowing NASA to focus directly on increasing the
utilization of ISS laboratories, testbeds and observatory sites.
Through the conclusion of ISS Expedition 28 in October 2011,
approximately 1,250 research investigations were performed that
involved 1,309 principal investigators (PIs) from 63 countries around
the world. Of these, U.S. PIs under NASA sponsorship conducted 475
investigations (38 percent of the total). Expeditions 29 to 32, which
cover the period from October 2011-September 2012, included 259 total
investigations. In other words, approximately 20 percent as many
investigations were performed in these two post-assembly Expeditions as
had been achieved in the prior 28 Expeditions combined. An impressive
range of scientific research, technology demonstrations and educational
outreach is underway.
In the area of scientific research, recent highlights include:
The Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI) instrument, a
highly sensitive X-ray slit camera externally-mounted for
monitoring more than 1,000 X-ray sources in space, including
black holes and neutron stars, made the first observation,
along with the Swift spacecraft, of a relativistic X-ray burst
from a super-massive black hole destroying a star and creating
a jet of X-rays. The research teams co-published their results
in Nature, 476: 421-424 August 2011.
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) cosmic-ray particle
physics experiment was installed and began science operations
on May 19, 2011. AMS has recorded to date the passage of over
13 billion cosmic ray particle events originating from
elsewhere in our Milky Way galaxy. The U.S. Department-of-
Energy-sponsored collaboration across North America, Europe,
and Asia is actively analyzing these cosmic-ray particle data
for potential new physics and astronomy discoveries. The AMS
Payload Operations Control Center is located at CERN, in
Switzerland, which conveniently allows coordination with the
ground-based Large Hadron Collider high-energy particle
accelerator research activity.
Flame tests conducted by Principal Investigator Marshall B.
Long, Ph.D. of Yale University in Connecticut during the
Structure and Liftoff In Combustion Experiment (SLICE) yielded
stable lifted flames that can be simpler to numerically model.
SLICE investigates the nature of flames under microgravity
conditions and the results could lead to improvements in
technologies that aim to reduce pollution emissions and improve
burning efficiency for a wide variety of industries.
Fluid physics experiments conducted by Portland State
University in Oregon have led to a greater understanding of
capillary flow phenomena and subsequent production of open-
source code for modeling the behavior of fluids in space.
Research on self-ordering systems (published in Nature, 478:
225-228 October 13, 2011), demonstrates mechanisms relevant to
self-replication in primitive chemical environments. Colloidal
systems for studying the behavior of self-assembling materials
for photonic technologies are being used by Proctor and Gamble
to develop more stable, concentrated products.
Flight research conducted in the field of vaccine
development for bacterial pathogens, such as salmonella and
methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), has been
completed for the first target drug candidate. This work was
sponsored by a private firm, Astrogenetix, in cooperation with
a leading scientist from the Veterans Administration (VA). The
team is at the stage where additional funding is required to
conduct ground-based pre-clinical trials prior to submitting an
application for an investigational new drug (IND) with the Food
and Drug Administration. Both the firm and VA are pursuing
further funding to advance to the next stage.
Space Act Agreements were signed with the Arizona State
University Bio-Design Institute to conduct experiments
initially focusing on the development of vaccines.
In the area of technology development and demonstration, recent
highlights include:
The same technology that went into building the Canadarm2
and Dextre (the Canadian robots that assembled, service, and
maintain the ISS) was adapted to produce the world's first
robot capable of performing brain surgery--
neuroArmTM--on a patient while the patient undergoes
magnetic resonance imaging. This technology has since been
licensed to a private, publicly-traded medical device
manufacturer who will produce a two-armed version that allows
surgeons to see three-dimensional images, ``feel'' tissue, and
apply pressure during neurosurgical operations.
The Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM) began operations March
7-9, 2012, and continued operations from June 19-22, 2012,
marking an important milestone in satellite-servicing
technology. RRM is designed to demonstrate technologies, tools,
and techniques needed to robotically service and refuel
satellites in orbit that were not designed for on-orbit
servicing. During the gas fittings removal task, robot tele-
operators at Johnson Space Center directed Dextre to retrieve
tools and go through the tasks required to cut safety wires and
remove representative fittings located on the RRM module on
board ISS. These fittings are used on many spacecraft for
filling fluids and gases prior to launch. Future RRM operations
will demonstrate robotic satellite refueling, including opening
fill valves, transferring fluid, and other servicing tasks.
Robonaut 2 (R2) was launched to ISS on February 24, 2011.
This dexterous humanoid robot was developed in partnership with
General Motors. It is designed to duplicate the manipulation
capabilities of a human so that it can handle tools and assist
astronauts in performing tasks in space, or help workers build
cars on the assembly line. Like Dextre, R2 will be tele-
operated from the ground, and it will test a different way to
grip and manipulate objects with its human-like, five-digit
hands.
The Multi-User System for Earth Sensing (MUSES) platform
started development to provide a commercially managed platform
for Earth observation instruments. The platform provides high
accuracy pointing capabilities. It can hold up to four separate
instruments at once including visible, near infrared, and
hyperspectral instruments. Instruments can be changed out
robotically as new technologies and new instruments are
developed.
In the area of educational outreach, recent highlights include:
Literally thousands of two-minute video submissions were
received in areas of physics or biology from more than 80
countries for the first YouTube Space Lab global contest
sponsored by YouTube, Lenovo Computers, and Space Adventures,
Inc. in cooperation with NASA, the European Space Agency, and
the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency . This educational
project challenges 14-18-year-olds to design a science
experiment that can be performed in space. The top two
experiments will be conducted on ISS.
The Program also conducts experiments that involve student
participation. One example is the Synchronized Position Hold,
Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) facility.
SPHERES are three bowling-ball sized spherical satellites that
are used inside the Station to test telerobotics operations in
addition to spacecraft formation flight, autonomous rendezvous
and docking maneuvers. NASA, along with the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency with implementation by the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have co-sponsored three
``Zero Robotics SPHERES Challenge'' competitions for high
school and middle school students from the U.S. and abroad. The
competitions challenge students to write software code, which
is uploaded to the robots on ISS, and the SPHERES satellites
then execute the instructions, such as formation flight and
close proximity operations. Student finalists were able to
watch their flight program live on NASA-TV.
Astronauts aboard ISS participate in educational downlinks
with schools, and engage in communicating with people around
the world using ``ham'' radio.
A National Laboratory in Orbit
In the NASA Authorization Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-155), Congress
designated the U.S. segment of the ISS as a National Laboratory, and
directed the Agency to seek to increase the utilization of the ISS by
other Federal entities and the private sector. NASA has made solid
strides in its effort to engage other organizations in the ISS program.
Subsequently, in the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-267),
Congress directed that the Agency enter into a cooperative agreement
with a not-for-profit organization to manage the activities of the ISS
National Laboratory. To this end, NASA issued a cooperative agreement
notice on February 14, 2011, and on August 31, 2011, the Agency
finalized a cooperative agreement with the Center for the Advancement
of Science in Space (CASIS) to manage the portion of the ISS that
operates as a U.S. National Laboratory. The CASIS organization is
located in the Space Life Sciences Laboratory at Kennedy Space Center
in Florida. The independent, nonprofit research management organization
will help ensure the Station's unique capabilities are available to the
broadest possible cross-section of U.S. scientific, technological, and
industrial communities.
CASIS will develop and manage a varied R&D portfolio based on U.S.
national needs for basic and applied research; establish a marketplace
to facilitate matching research pathways with qualified funding
sources; and stimulate interest in using the national lab for research
and technology demonstrations and as a platform for science,
technology, engineering and mathematics education. The goal is to
support, promote and accelerate innovations and new discoveries in
science, engineering, and technology that will improve life on Earth.
The transition of the National Laboratory management function to
CASIS is progressing. Earlier this year, NASA, with the help of the
Office of Science and Technology Policy, put out a request for
candidates for the permanent board that will guide CASIS' efforts in
this groundbreaking enterprise. NASA is working with CASIS' interim
Board of Directors to identify and evaluate a diverse group of
outstanding individuals for that board, and the Agency is also in the
process of transitioning existing National Laboratory agreement holders
to CASIS.
To help facilitate U.S. National Laboratory opportunities aboard
Station, on June 26, 2012, CASIS launched its first solicitation for
proposals. Through this solicitation, CASIS aims to enable next-
generation research in the area of protein crystallization and life
science breakthroughs. The current request for proposals calls for
crystallography investigations--studies using three-dimensional
structures of protein molecules.
NASA's National Laboratory partners can use the unique microgravity
environment of space and the advanced research facilities aboard
Station to enable investigations that may give them the edge in the
global competition to develop valuable, high technology products and
services. Furthermore, the demand for access to the ISS will support
the providers of commercial crew and cargo systems. Both of these
aspects of the U.S. segment of ISS as a National Laboratory will help
establish and demonstrate the market for research in LEO beyond the
requirements of NASA.
International Partnership Progress
The ISS Multilateral Coordination Board (MCB) and Heads-of-Agency
(HOA) met in Quebec City, Canada, February 28 and March 1, 2012, to
discuss future plans for the ISS, progress on utilization, and
potential contributions to future human exploration missions. The
International Partners reported progress on identifying potential
technology demonstrations that could be conducted on the ISS. These
demonstrations correlate closely with the recent report issued by the
National Research Council, Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board on
NASA Space Technologies and Priorities.
In addition, the MCB and HOA released two documents related to ISS
utilization:
``ISS Utilization Statistics,'' Fall 2011 (inaugural issue),
which documents the number and thematic areas of research being
conducted by each partner.
``ISS Benefits for Humanity,'' which launches a new
international web portal describing achievements of the ISS
partnership in the areas of human health, Earth observation and
disaster response, and education.
Copies of both documents are available at: http://www.nasa.gov/
mission_pages/station/research/index.html
Conclusion
We have many challenges and opportunities ahead as we continue to
sustain and productively utilize the ISS. These include training the
next generation of scientists, engineers, and technologists for greater
challenges as human presence is extended further into the solar system.
This mission pull drives us to develop innovative solutions that
benefit humans on the Earth today. We have two extraordinary assets
that have never before existed in the history of human space
exploration--an experienced international partnership encompassing
Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia, and the U.S., and a permanently crewed,
full-service space station in low-Earth orbit. Our ability to continue
working together as a global team, while making the best applied use of
our assets, will pace the future progress of space exploration and
expansion of benefits on Earth.
Great nations explore in order to advance. Throughout history,
nations have progressed and benefited from exploration. Exploration
drives technological breakthroughs and scientific discoveries that
benefit society; without exploration, the cycle of innovation and
advancement is broken. This innovation is well documented in the U.S.
patent record. In the past 30 years, the U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office has granted over 818 microgravity-related patents, and in the
past decade over 587 further applications have been filed. The same
holds true for Space Station, where 1,722 patents have been granted and
1,107 applications are pending, and for the Space Shuttle, where 2,384
patents have been granted and 1,285 applications remain pending. These
7,903 patent actions are historic evidence of the promise for the
future.
The ISS has now entered its intensive research phase, and this
phase will continue through at least 2020. Station will continue to
meet NASA's mission objective to prepare for the next steps in human
space exploration--steps which will take astronauts beyond LEO to
destinations such as near-Earth asteroids, and eventually, Mars. The
ISS is NASA's only long-duration flight analog for future human deep
space missions, and it provides an invaluable laboratory for research
with direct application to the exploration requirements that address
human risks associated with deep space missions. It is the only space-
based multinational research and technology test-bed available to
identify and quantify risks to human health and performance, identify
and validate potential risk mitigation techniques, and develop
countermeasures for future human exploration.
The ISS Partnership has transformed exploration from an effort for
the advancement of individual nations, to an endeavor committed to the
advancement of humankind. Closer to home, NASA's National Laboratory
partners can use the unique microgravity environment of space and the
advanced research facilities aboard Station to enable investigations
that may give them the edge in the global competition to develop
valuable, high technology products and services. Furthermore, the
demand for access to the ISS will support the providers of commercial
crew and cargo systems. Both of these aspects of the U.S. segment of
ISS as a National Laboratory will help establish and demonstrate the
market for research in LEO beyond the requirements of NASA.
NASA appreciates this Committee's ongoing support of the ISS as we
work together to support this amazing facility that yields remarkable
results and benefits for the world.
Mr. Chairman, I would be happy to respond to any question you or
the other Members of the Committee may have.
Senator Nelson. Thank you, Mr. Gerstenmaier.
Mr. Reiter?
STATEMENT OF THOMAS REITER, DIRECTOR, HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT AND
OPERATIONS, EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY
Mr. Reiter. Dear Mr. Chairman, dear members of the
Committee----
Senator Nelson. Don't worry about those bells.
Mr. Reiter. OK.
Senator Nelson. That is what is going on over on the floor
of the Senate.
Mr. Reiter. All right. It is also great opportunity and
honor for me to testify before you today and present the
European Space Agency's role and capabilities on ISS.
The successful utilization of ISS is of highest priority
for the European Space Agency and for the European ISS
partners. ISS is a unique platform for scientific research and
technology development.
It is in full recognition of the extraordinary utilization
opportunities of the ISS that Europe decided to engage as a
full and very active partner in this unparalleled international
cooperation together with the United States, with Russia, with
Japan, and Canada. Europe, working through the European Space
Agency, developed and operates two key elements: the Columbus
laboratory, which you see here in the front side on the left,
and the Automated Transfer Vehicle.
Columbus is a multi-function laboratory, which is shared
with NASA and the other partners, and it is equipped with 10
interchangeable payload racks containing an advanced number of
research instruments.
The second key element, the ATV, Automated Transfer
Vehicle, which is able to deliver more than 7 metric tons of
cargo to the ISS. One of these vehicles is currently docked to
the International Space Station until mid of September, and two
more of these vehicles about to come next year and in 2014.
Apart from cargo delivery, ATV is providing fuel for
maintaining attitude control and giving boost to the station
and also gas, water, and other supply articles.
Apart from Columbus and the ATV, Europe has also
contributed to other elements, equipment, and design skills.
For example, the DMS-R, the data management system, which has
been a key part in the station's ``brain,'' so to say. Two of
three nodes that link station components, a dome-like structure
with panoramic windows called the cupola, allowing astronauts
to operate the station Robotic Manipulator System and other
equipment.
And inside U.S. Destiny research module, various laboratory
equipment like the material science rack and freezer units.
Europe also provides members of the ISS crew. Since 2001,
18 European astronauts have lived and worked onboard ISS. And
one of my colleagues from Europe, Dutch astronaut Andre
Kuipers, just returned a few days ago, together with Don
Pettit, from a half year work onboard the station.
Europe's participation in the ISS program means that
throughout ESA's member states, thousands of Europe's
scientists and engineers at hundreds of universities and high-
technology companies are working on the frontier of 21st
century science and engineering. ESA has implemented a broad
portfolio of research activities, covering fundamental science,
applied research, as well as human exploration preparation and
technology development.
To date, ESA has performed more than 200 experiments
onboard ISS. And since the deployment of the Columbus
laboratory in February 2008, increasingly long duration
experiments--at an average of 30 to 40 per year--have also been
implemented.
Examples have already been given in the areas of human
physiology and fundamental physics. Let me just give one
additional example from the area of material sciences, which we
have just concluded a project investigating processes for the
development of new lightweight alloys. And these new
lightweight alloys are now used for turbine blades in aircraft
engines in an industry valued some 2 billion Euros over the
next coming years.
Many of the fundamental and applied research projects
conducted within the European Program for Life and Physical
Sciences, called ELIPS, are creating a growing knowledge basis
to improve production processes and to create new products,
such as medical equipment, casting technologies, and other
miniaturized sensors and devices.
Of course, the ISS also offers outstanding opportunities as
test bed for Human Exploration preparation beyond low-Earth
orbit. Apart from already ongoing or planned scientific and
technological investigations, ESA supports challenging new
ideas to pave the way for human exploration beyond low-Earth
orbit. The joint implementation of these activities by the
whole ISS partnership will allow rapid progress for the
preparation of future human exploration missions.
The European Program for Life and Physical Sciences in
Space involves some 1,500 scientists in almost 150 projects
included in the research pool of ISS experiments.
Now besides the significance of the ISS for science,
applications, and technology, its utilization opportunities and
the astronauts working on the station are a strong inspiration
for the young generations to consider a science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics education. In this context, ESA
carries out education activities on the ISS in close
collaboration with our partners.
The continuous efforts of the ISS partners for the global
promotion of the ISS accomplishments with dedicated
publications of the ISS Program Science Forum and public events
like the recent ISS Symposium, which took place in Berlin,
highlight the value of the International Space Station and the
strength of its international partnership in the public.
Now, in conclusion, the successful and optimal utilization
of the ISS is important to the European Space Agency in order
to demonstrate to its member states the return of investment.
ESA has already reaped considerable benefits from the
scientific research, applications, technology demonstrations,
and education activities performed on the International Space
Station, and more are expected to be realized in the
continuation of ISS utilization in the years to come.
I would, therefore, like to underline an extremely
important dimension of this international partnership in the
ISS program: the excellent and highly valued cooperation
between ESA and NASA. Forging such an international partnership
and working together as partners is often referred to as one of
the biggest achievements of the ISS program.
It is the international partnership that brought the ISS
and its unique utilization opportunities into existence, and we
will also need an international partnership, probably even a
wider one than the one for ISS, when aiming at the next steps
for human exploration.
Sorry for extending a little bit the 5 minutes. Thank you
very much, and I am ready to answer your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Reiter follows:]
Prepared Statement of Thomas Reiter, Director, Human Spaceflight and
Operations, European Space Agency
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for the honour
and the opportunity to testify before you today and present the
European Space Agency's role and capabilities on ISS, in particular
with respect to its utilisation for scientific research, applications,
technology development and education purposes. The successful
utilisation of the ISS is of highest priority for the European Space
Agency and for the European ISS partners.
The European Space Agency's Role and Capabilities on ISS
The International Space Station (ISS) is a unique scientific and
technology platform in space, which continuously allows researchers
from all over the world to put their talents to work on innovative
experiments that could not be done here on Earth. Weightlessness, as
well as other properties of the space environment, are influencing a
huge variety of physical, chemical and biological processes. Low-Earth
orbit is therefore an ideal environment for research in a wide spectrum
of disciplines, as well as an excellent area for preparing future human
exploration of space. The domains for utilisation are many and diverse:
from fundamental physics to human physiology, from new alloys to growth
processes in plants, from astrophysics to demonstration of space
technologies and services. It is in full recognition of the
extraordinary utilisation opportunities of the ISS that Europe decided
to engage as a full and very active partner in this unique and
unparalleled international cooperation undertaking together with the
United States, Russia, Japan and Canada.
Europe, working through ESA, developed and operates two key
elements of the Station: the European Columbus laboratory and the
Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV).
The European Columbus laboratory is one of the key ISS research
capabilities, which ESA shares with NASA. Equipped with 10
interchangeable payload racks, Columbus is a multi-function laboratory
with an advanced suite of research instruments, namely for fluid
physics, materials science and biology and especially for human
research. On its four external platforms with different orientations it
also provides unique external exposure and observation accommodation
capabilities for unpressurized payloads.
Europe's second biggest contribution is the Automated Transfer
Vehicle (ATV), a vast versatile cargo supply vessel lifted into orbit
by the Ariane-5 launcher with full autonomous rendezvous and docking
capabilities to ISS. The ATV carries up to 7 tonnes of cargo including
provisions, scientific payloads and rocket propellant. Once docked, the
craft can use its engines to boost the Station higher in its orbit,
counteracting the drag from the Earth's atmosphere. After the first
ATV, Jules Verne in 2008, Johannes Kepler was flown in 2011 and the
third one, Edoardo Amaldi was launched to the ISS on 23 March 2012 and
will still remain docked until the end of September. The fourth and
fifth ATV's are already in preparation for launch in 2013 and 2014.
Apart from Columbus and the ATV, Europe's scientists and engineers
are also contributing other elements, equipment and design skills
across many elements of the ISS.
Among these elements, the DMS-R data management system, which has
been a key part of the Station's 'brain' since its July 2000 launch
aboard the Russian Zvezda Service Module.
Europe built also two of the three nodes that link Station
components, as well as the Cupola--a dome-like structure that is the
crew's panoramic window on space and a control room for astronauts
operating the Station Robotic Manipulator Systems and other equipment.
In fact, European technology plays an important part in many
Station sections. Inside the United States Destiny research module, for
instance, Europe has mounted, among other equipment, a specialized
material science rack and freezer units. The Japanese Experiment Module
also hosts one of the three MELFI freezers, which ESA has developed for
NASA, as the cold stowage sample preservation reservoir on ISS, which
is jointly used by the whole ISS partnership in conjunction with NASA's
smart cold transportation assets.
Europe also provides members of the ISS-crew. European astronauts
have flown in space since 1983, and since 1998 the European Astronaut
Centre in Cologne has concentrated on training men and women for future
ISS missions. The first European to serve a tour of duty on the ISS,
went on mission to the ISS in April 2001 on the Space Shuttle. Since
then 18European astronauts have lived and worked on board the ISS as
team members of fully integrated ISS crews.
The astronauts on the ISS will always be part of a much larger
scientific team on Earth which is closely following the crew activities
on ISS. The European user community is very active and therefore the
corresponding ISS utilisation demand is very high. The current European
research plan of selected flight experiments already lasts until 2017
and the next Announcements of Opportunity will be solicited in due
time.
In fact the European mission control centres--the Columbus Control
Centre (COL-CC) in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany and the ATV Control Centre
(ATV-CC) in Toulouse, France--direct onboard experiments and the
European ATV missions, sharing Station command with the United States
and Russia.
Nine European User Support and Operation Centres (USOCs) are based
in national centres distributed throughout Europe. These centres are
responsible for the use and implementation of European payloads on
board the ISS and support the user community on the ground. The USOC
activities also extend to investigations, which are done with European
research equipment in ISS modules beyond Columbus.
Right now, Europe's participation in the ISS means that throughout
ESA's Member States, thousands of Europe's best scientists and
engineers at hundreds of universities and high-technology companies are
working on the leading edge of 21st-Century science and engineering.
And the European ISS team is fully embedded in the international ISS
partnership, which allows to exploit many synergies and invaluable
experiences.
Scientific and Technological Objectives and Accomplishments to Date
ESA--through its research programmes on board the ISS--has
implemented a broad portfolio of research activities, in fundamental
science, applied research as well as human exploration preparation and
technology, addressing the following key research areas:
Fundamental Physics
Atmospheric and Environmental Research
Materials Sciences
Physics of Fluids and Combustion
Astrobiology
Cell, Developmental and Plant Biology
Human Physiology and Performance
Astrophysics
Technology Testing
More than 200 experiments have been performed so far by ESA on
board the ISS: short duration experiments before the assembly of the
Columbus laboratory to the ISS, making use of Soyuz ``Taxi-flights''
under agreements with Russia, and since 2006 with NASA in the Destiny
lab in the frame of the so-called ``Early Utilisation Agreement'' and
also making use of Russian resources. Since the deployment of the
Columbus laboratory in February 2008 increasingly long duration
experiments--at an average of 30 to 40 per year--have also been
implemented.
A very good example of the tangible benefits of the research on
board ISS is the already successfully concluded IMPRESS project, a
material sciences research project the results of which were actually
instrumental to develop new light-weight alloys; these new light-weight
alloys are now used for aircraft engines turbine blades, in an industry
valued some 2 Billion Euro over the next 10 years. The space part of
this research project has been performed with furnaces and
electromagnetic levitation facilities on parabolic flights and short-
duration Sounding Rocket missions. Now ESA's Material Science
Laboratory (MSL), which is operated with NASA in the Destiny module
under a bilateral cooperation agreement in the Materials Science
Research Rack (MSRR-1), and soon also the unique Electro Magnetic
Levitator (EML) in Columbus offer such capabilities for institutional
and industrial users on board the Station. This will allow the optimum
directional solidification of alloys in MSL and complementary
container-less high-precision measurement of thermo-physical properties
on a large variety of alloys which is essential for advanced casting
processes and materials features.
Also the joint operation of the European developed ISS facilities
Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG), European Modular Cultivation
System (EMCS), Pulmonary Function System (PFS) for a large suite of
investigations with fluids, biology, human research and again the MELFI
freezers for samples preservation are invaluable assets on ISS space
for advanced experimentation by our increasingly demanding user
communities.
Furthermore, many of the fundamental and applied research projects
conducted within the European programme for Life and Physical Sciences
in Space (ELIPS) create the growing knowledge basis for new products
and improved processes, such as medical equipment, casting
technologies, miniaturised sensors and devices.
In future an ensemble of high-precision atomic clocks (ACES) on ISS
will demonstrate, in combination with the world best ground reference
clocks, advancements in frequency and time measurements for navigation,
improving navigational accuracy.
The ISS offers outstanding opportunities as test-bed for Human
Exploration preparation beyond LEO. Apart from already on-going or
planned scientific and technological investigations, ESA also fully
supports the challenging ideas, which are under detailed elaboration by
the International Expert Working Group (IEWG) teams under the
leadership of NASA. The joint implementation of these activities by the
whole ISS partnership will allow rapid progress and outstanding
accomplishments on ISS for the preparation of future Human Exploration
missions beyond LEO.
The European programme for Life and Physical Sciences in Space,
ELIPS, involves some 1500 scientists in almost 150 projects included in
the research pool of ISS experiments. ELIPS includes a large and
diverse group of industrial users interested in application-oriented
research and industrial R&D; industrial R&D is often implemented in
combination with the objectives and expertise of institutional
researchers from academia. Hence, the continued utilisation of ISS and
Low-Earth Orbit creates economic opportunities that stimulates both the
academic and industrial sector and is providing for a variety of socio-
economic benefits on Earth. ESA is making every effort, in full
coordination with ISS international partners and through dedicated
Announcements of Opportunities, to attract the best ISS utilisation
proposals, including those from international research teams beyond the
borders of Europe. Corresponding to the diversified user needs, ESA is
following an approach that enables utilisation opportunities across the
entire spectrum of utilisation fields.
Besides the significance of the ISS for science, applications and
technology demonstrations, the ISS, its utilisation opportunities and
the astronauts working on the Station are a strong inspiration for the
young generations to consider a Science, Technology, Engineering and
Mathematics (STEM) education. In this context, ESA carries out
education activities on the ISS in close collaboration with NASA.
The continuous efforts of NASA for the global promotion of the ISS
accomplishments with dedicated publications of the ISS Programme
Science Forum and public events like the recent ISS Symposium in Berlin
highlight the value of the International Space Station and the strength
of its international partnership to the public.
Optimisation of ISS Utilisation and Potential Improvements
In order to optimize the science yield of ISS, the establishment of
an internationally coordinated ISS research plan and joint science
opportunities' solicitations are sought. The optimisation of the ISS
utilisation can be accomplished making use of the well-established
international working groups in life and physical sciences (ISLSWG and
IMSPG) and pooling research objectives and flight resources. ESA has
currently identified more than 20 joint ISS experiments with NASA and
in total more than 50 with all the ISS partners. The shared use of
unique on-orbit research infrastructure is of high importance to allow
optimum and efficient experimentation on ISS according to terrestrial
laboratories standards, despite the additional spaceflight challenges.
In general most of the ISS research originates from earthbound
problems. Hence a very solid anticipated terrestrial research programme
is instrumental for defining and reaching challenging utilisation
objectives on ISS, which are also of major impact in terms of Earth
benefits. This close link even applies to a lot of the research and
technology objectives for Human Exploration preparation on ISS. A
thorough preparation of ISS experiments on ground or short-duration
precursor flight opportunities (drop towers, parabolic flights,
sounding rockets) is of great scientific and technical importance.
Conclusions
The successful and optimal utilisation of the ISS is important to
ESA; ESA has already reaped considerable benefits from the scientific
research, applications, technology demonstrations and education
activities performed on the International Space Station, and more are
expected to be realised in the continuation of the ISS utilisation in
the years to come.
To conclude, I would like to take this opportunity to underline a
highly visible-and highly important dimension of the international
partnership in the ISS programme: the excellent and highly valued
cooperation between ESA-NASA. The forging of such an international
partnership and getting experience in working together as partners is
often referred to as one of the biggest achievements of the ISS
programme. It is the international partnership that brought the ISS and
its unique utilisation opportunities into existence and fruition. We
will also need an international partnership, probably even a wider one
than for the ISS, when aiming at the next steps of human space
exploration.
Mr. Chairman, I would be happy to respond to any question you or
the other Members of the Committee may have.
Thank you.
Senator Nelson. This is the first time that we have had a
representative of the European Space Agency in a decade testify
in front of this committee. So, Mr. Reiter, we appreciate that
very much.
How many days were you in space?
Mr. Reiter. In total, 350. I flew to the Russian Space
Station MIR in 1995 for 179 days, and the ISS in 2006 for 171
days. So 350.
Senator Nelson. Very good.
Mr. Royston, tell us about CASIS at the Kennedy Space
Center, how you are preparing the experiments to go to the
station.
STATEMENT OF JAMES D. ROYSTON, INTERIM EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE IN SPACE
Mr. Royston. All right. First, I would like to thank the
Committee for the opportunity to speak here today. It is a real
honor to sit here on this panel and in this room with those
that envisioned, built, and recently spent time on the
International Space Station.
To our elected officials, I want to thank you for your
leadership, support, and ongoing commitment to this great
national asset. I would especially like to thank Senator
Hutchison for your outstanding service and commitment not only
to the ISS, but also to manned space flight. Your leadership
and dedication is why we are here today, and you will
definitely be missed.
I would also like to thank Senator Nelson from my home
State of Florida for all your past, present, and future
leadership in space. And I must acknowledge the junior Senator
also from my great state of Florida, Senator Rubio.
As you are aware, CASIS was formed in response to the
direction provided by this committee regarding independent
management of the National Lab. The CASIS mission has one
overarching goal, and that is to maximize the use of the
National Lab. And by doing so, we need to give our taxpayers
the return on investment they deserve.
This is a challenging task. To achieve this goal, CASIS
must stimulate and open new markets and introduce new users to
this unparalleled asset. We must help all Americans understand
why we go there and how it benefits them, and we must fully
utilize what I believe is the best teaching tool ever created
to inspire our next generation of scientists, mathematicians,
and engineers.
In our short existence, CASIS has made great strides in
spreading the word about the potential of the National Lab
while building a solid foundation that will guarantee the
future success of this organization. In line with the original
vision in our proposal, our staff has worked urgently to
partner with industry, academia, and others to ensure that
CASIS can be responsive to the needs of potential users and to
maximize utilization.
Our world-class panel of scientists has identified initial
avenues of promising research after poring over more than 135
projects flown in space to date. We have conducted extensive
outreach activities, meeting with over 160 companies and
organizations from coast to coast to convince them of the
benefits of doing research and developing products in space.
This ongoing effort also provides us with valuable
information on how industry views space and the barriers to
doing business on the National Lab. We have issued our first
funded solicitation for research, with many more to follow. We
have taken steps to enhance the capabilities of the National
Lab from an external research platform to new software
enhancements. We have assembled an expanding list of hardware
and integration experts to assist researchers in getting their
projects to space.
We have worked with NASA to increase the efficiencies and
speed by which we can get projects from just an idea into
orbit. We have become an enabler of the new commercial space
flight industry, and we will build their backlog that will
drive the flight rates.
We have enticed new players from nontraditional markets to
develop their consumer goods on the National Lab. We have
attracted more than 30 unsolicited project proposals, which are
currently going through our evaluation process. We are working
with Fortune 100 companies and brand-new startups that see
space as truly a new, emerging market.
We have created product endorsements capable of bringing
the awareness and the wonder of the ISS into people's living
rooms. And we have established an education program that soon
will be capable of reaching hundreds of thousands of school
children in a very short period of time.
Most importantly, we have met our key milestones that were
laid out for us in our performance plan. And as we transition
from our standup phase to our operational phase, I am excited
to tell you that the permanent Board of Directors, including
some of America's brightest minds from business and science
will soon be announced.
I firmly believe that this Board, along with our new
Executive Director, will exceed the expectations envisioned by
this committee and also by others.
In closing, I believe this is our defining moment. The
outpost is in place. The railroads have been built. History
will look back at this moment as a time when industry and
government came together as true pioneers, and companies
invested their own money to ferry cargo and humans back and
forth from this great outpost.
It is our moment, and working together, we can open this
new frontier to all Americans for the benefit of all humankind.
Thank you. And I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Royston follows:]
Prepared Statement of James D. Royston, Interim Executive Director,
Center for the Advancement of Science in Space
Introduction
Good morning. It's a privilege to be here before you this morning
and I want to thank the Committee for this opportunity to update the
American people about the performance and accomplishments of the Center
for the Advancement of Science in Space, better known as CASIS, and its
role as the manager of the International Space Station National
Laboratory (ISS NL).
The entire CASIS organization is working diligently to establish
procedures for outreach, business development, operations, education
and fundraising that will ensure we successfully enable companies,
academic researchers, students and Federal agencies to conduct research
and development on board Station. These efforts will produce
breakthroughs in science, technology, materials and pharmaceutical
drugs which will provide American taxpayers with a positive return on
their investment while benefitting all humanity.
Because of its unique mission and mandate, CASIS has greater
flexibility and can conduct activities far different than NASA. As
Congress intended, CASIS' status as an independent and non-profit
organization allows for the development of partnerships, funding
sources, endorsements, and other opportunities that NASA cannot pursue.
CASIS can raise money, advertise, and innovate in ways that open new
opportunities for ISS utilization.
The CASIS staff shares the Committee's sense of urgency with
regards to maximizing use of the ISS NL. In the following testimony, I
will discuss how CASIS is developing and pursuing innovative, forward-
leaning, and broad strategies to attract a wide-range of users to ISS
NL.
Foundation and Organizational Structure
During its standup phase, CASIS has developed an organizational
structure faithful to our proposal, Cooperative Agreement with NASA,
and original Reference Model, but one which is also responsive to the
practicalities of implementation and the realities of the marketplace.
We currently have 27 full-time employees. Staff members bring with
them an array of skills and extensive experience with NASA and the
aerospace industry, R&D, venture capital, media, commercialization,
management, and operations. Our staff has worked with urgency to
establish CASIS' essential functions: business development, marketing,
education, and operations. We have worked and partnered with industry,
academia and others to ensure that the CASIS organization can be
responsive to the needs of potential users of the ISS NL. We have
conducted extensive outreach activities. All work undertaken thus far
has been in an effort to move the organization forward in an efficient,
timely and practical manner in step with efforts to establish a
permanent Board of Directors and executive leadership. We are confident
that the steps taken so far to identify initial research pathways while
raising awareness and developing partnerships satisfy our mandate and
will be approved by a permanent Board of Directors.
The Board of Directors selection process began several months ago
when the Interim Board contracted with a well-respected executive
search firm, Korn/Ferry International, to conduct an independent,
verifiable search for qualified candidates. Stakeholders, including the
leadership of this Committee and its House counterpart, NASA, and other
science-focused Federal agencies, had the opportunity to submit names
of Board candidates. Through a series of evaluations, interviews, and
down-selects, the Interim Board has identified the first group of
permanent Board of Directors candidates, all of whom represent the best
American minds in the fields of scientific research and management from
academia, government, and industry. An announcement of the first set of
Board members will be made shortly, with the remaining 15-member Board
finalized soon thereafter. As envisioned by Congress and the ISS NL
Reference Model, the permanent Board will be made up of world-class
scientists and leaders who will provide CASIS with guidance, expertise,
and credibility. They will serve as ambassadors for CASIS and the ISS
NL, reaching new users and supporters through their various networks.
Additionally, the initial permanent Board members will appoint the
permanent Executive Director.
While awaiting the appointment of a permanent board, CASIS has
taken steps to establish a path toward effective utilization in line
with Congressional intent, our Cooperative Agreement with NASA, and
other guiding documents. This includes the appointment early this year
of a world-class Interim Chief Scientist and an Interim Science
Collegium comprised of renowned experts to review past life sciences
research conducted in space in order to identify initial research
pathways. Their effort resulted in our first solicitation for research
in the area of protein crystallization. This is a well-established area
of interest for researchers, but in need of a more systematic approach
than has been taken in the past. The validity of the collegium's
approach is supported by a recent National Academy of Sciences' study
highlighting the importance of studying crystal growth without
gravitational bias. Protein crystallization in microgravity can
validate its scientific worth and unlock the potential for countless
discoveries.
State of Valuation and Prioritization Process
CASIS' valuation model has been developed in order to best respond
to the specific needs of the ISS NL as well as to meet the requirements
of our charter. Designed to be a transparent process, it incorporates
standard business model elements with regards to project evaluation and
prioritization and has evolved into a robust methodology, taking into
account scientific merit, economic value, readiness, and operational
feasibility.
An interim process was used on multiple test cases, starting with
an operational review to gauge the feasibility of proposals. The
Interim Chief Scientist and his team reviewed projects for scientific
merit and impact. The Chief Economist and his team then assessed
projects for value and potential return to the U.S. taxpayer. Our
compliance team scrutinized the legal implications and challenges.
Final decisions were made by the Interim Executive Director with
Interim Board approval.
Once a permanent Board of Directors is in place and selects a
permanent Executive Director, the final CASIS Evaluation and
Prioritization Framework will be used on solicited and unsolicited
proposals. Under the final methodology, the interim process expands to
include the evaluation of projects by the scientific collegium and
outside industry experts who will score and help prioritize projects
using a standardized set of metrics for the scientific and economic
reviews. These metrics will be posted publicly on the CASIS website.
Taking into account the scoring results, the CASIS science and economic
teams will deliver the final recommendations to the Executive Director,
Chief Scientist and Chief Economist, who will then make the final award
and funding decisions. The methodology is designed to adapt to new and
ever-changing market demands. The Framework in its entirety is spelled
out in Appendix iii.
Outreach Efforts
The vast majority of Americans, including business leaders and
leading scientific researchers, simply do not know that the ISS NL
exists and is open to them for research. To fully realize the potential
of the ISS NL, there must be aggressive outreach and education
activities to raise awareness of Station and its capabilities. This has
become a top priority for CASIS. Over the last 11 months, we have set
out to establish and develop relationships with new and previous
researchers, commercial entities, entrepreneurs, financial partners,
philanthropic organizations, educators, students, and citizen
scientists. Since March, CASIS staff has met representatives from over
165 organizations from coast to coast to inform them about the numerous
opportunities to use the ISS NL.
In addition, CASIS has supported the Destination Station outreach
programs by participating with NASA on several research panels, Twitter
Town Halls, University presentations, and informational exhibit booths.
Last month, CASIS, in conjunction with the American Astronautical
Society (AAS), was a co-sponsor and active participant in the First
Annual ISS Research and Development Conference conducted in Denver, CO.
During this conference, CASIS also successfully produced and
coordinated the first-ever Implementation Partner Tradeshow, which
included over 20 implementation partners exhibiting their capabilities.
This provided a cutting-edge venue for the over 400 attendees, who
could be potential users of the ISS National Lab, to collaborate with
established payload implementation and integration partners, allowing
them the opportunity to gain an understanding of the capabilities
available to ensure the success of science missions.
Over the last six months, CASIS has reached out to hardware
providers, flight and integration specialists and others to create a
consolidated directory of implementation partners to assist ISS NL
users to efficiently and effectively get their research into space. The
ever-expanding resource is the first of its kind and is available in
hard copy or as a PDF via the CASIS website. It provides technical and
contact information useful for ISS NL users and currently lists more
than 35 specialized companies and organizations The objective is to
match users with integration and hardware partners and in doing so
stimulate new investigators and researchers by making it easier and
more cost-effective for to prepare their research for flight.
In June, CASIS announced the creation of the ``Space Is In It''
seal which the organization will bestow upon companies that
successfully develop commercial products based on research and
development, testing or use on the ISS NL. Through the ``Space Is In
It'' endorsement, CASIS positions Station in the forefront of the
general public's understanding of our space program. This seal adds
marketing value to the ISS and allows non-traditional users the
opportunity to understand the benefits of science in space. The goal of
the seal is to connect Station and the ISS NL research with consumers,
fix ISS awareness more strongly in people's minds and in pop culture,
and to entice U.S. companies to look more carefully at the value of
developing and researching products on Station. Last month, CASIS
announced it would award the ``Space Is In It'' seal to any products
developed by COBRA PUMA Golf from investigations on the ISS NL, after
the golf manufacturer declared its intention to conduct materials
research on Station with the hopes of creating revolutionary sporting
goods for consumers.
Education Initiatives
While the overlying mission of CASIS is to effectively and fully
utilize the ISS, educating the future engineers and technical
professionals of tomorrow about Station and careers in space are
paramount to maximizing our Nation's investment. The CASIS Education
Program seeks to use the research CASIS brokers on Station as a
springboard to increase STEM literacy for all students from
Kindergarten to higher education; excite students about STEM careers;
support teachers in improving STEM education; and promote the ISS as a
STEM learning platform..
CASIS will work with commercial and academic National Lab users to
develop curricula around their payloads in cases where it makes sense
for educational purposes. This aspect of our education mission holds
great potential for raising awareness about the ISS, supporting
teachers, and teaching students about the practical uses of space-based
research. This will be an on-going focus for CASIS staff. CASIS will
also play a key role in ISS advocacy by developing curricula to excite
younger children about Station science in general.
In June, CASIS has signed an agreement with the Student Spaceflight
Experiments Program (SSEP), spearheaded by the National Center for
Earth and Space Education (NCESSC), to sponsor student science projects
on Station. In 2013, SSEP could reach thousands of students and
hundreds of communities nationwide. CASIS will work with NCESSC to
enhance the program to expand its outreach.
In another example of the innovative, multi-layer deals CASIS can
make, the organization this year established a partnership with the PGA
of America. By leveraging PGA's immense network of players,
professionals, fans and sponsors, CASIS can bring attention and
relevance to both Station and the space program by reaching a whole new
audience of children, educators, companies, and decision makers. The
first prong of this strategic cooperation constituted a pilot PGA STEM
Enrichment Camp in June at the PGA Center for Golf and Learning. Over
five days, in classroom settings and on a golf course, underprivileged
children received instruction in more than just golf; they learned
science, math, and engineering and about the ISS and the kinds of
research that could take place there. They learned about the physics of
golf and how the same principles are used by engineers and astronauts
every day. The event was so successful that the PGA is considering
rolling out the program nationally, initially expanding the program to
50 sites next year, then to 250 the following year and up to 750 in its
third year. This pilot program is model that can be adapted and used by
other established organizations to reach the maximum number of students
in the shortest period of time.
Other initiatives that CASIS has put into motion with regard to
educational endeavors include `Story Time From Space', in which a well-
known science children's author will write a series of books designed
to create awareness about Station, which will be read by astronauts in
front of video cameras on the ISS NL, exciting young readers about the
world in space., . The videos will posted on the CASIS website and
social media platforms. `Story Time From Space' will reach a previously
underserved demographic and connect literacy with STEM concepts. CASIS
is working to finalize this deal by the end of the year.
Operations
The CASIS Operations Director was hired in 2011, and project
management staff positions were filled beginning in January of this
year. It is completely staffed, with six members. All team members have
extensive project management and flight hardware experience from time
at space centers, the aerospace industry, and the transportation
sector. Operations staff members are responsible for working with their
clients from project conception to completion. They will use their
knowledge and skills to develop, integrate, and operate projects in
order to accomplish the goals of users and to ensure alignment with the
CASIS mission.
The operations directorate has assumed responsibility for all
National Lab projects and payloads scheduled by NASA for current and
future ISS Expedition increments. This includes all research, planning
and sponsorship efforts. In particular, CASIS has sponsored research
plan updates, assisted with the development of science missions, and
assembled the entire ISS NL research plan for September 2013-March
2014, which has been approved by NASA. CASIS Operations is also
managing flight opportunities in September 2012-September 2013 for
unsolicited projects and the upcoming series of RFPs promoting the
utilization of existing ISS facilities in earth observation and
microgravity science.
With regards to fulfilling future increments as required by our
Cooperative Agreement, we are ahead of schedule. CASIS has identified
and developed payloads that will be flown on Increment 37/38, well
ahead of the Increment 39/40 time-frame set in our Annual Performance
Plan (APP). During Increment 37/38, we are working towards flying 5 to
6 payloads consisting of unsolicited projects that are currently being
vetted through our evaluation process. Additionally, we plan to deliver
the Windows on Earth software at the end of this year during Increment
35/36. These missions will serve to validate CASIS' processes and
capabilities, as required by the APP.
The operations division has also worked with NASA to transition all
National Lab projects to CASIS, with the exception of two due to
extenuating circumstances. As part of this effort, CASIS adopted the
commitments of the existing Space Act Agreements and entered into new
Memorandums of Agreement with existing National Lab partners to ensure
a continuation of project support and other commitments within CASIS's
ability to support.
Under a MOA signed with Bioserve, CASIS has tasked the company with
developing a commercial rodent research model in cooperation with NASA
Ames and Professor Ted Batemen, a leader in the field of space-based
rodent research. Our goal of flying a proof-of-concept mission in the
Fall 2013 cuts in half the time it would normally take to develop and
deploy such a concept. Along with establishing ground and on-orbit
processes, this initiative will include the demonstration of on-orbit
analysis capability, which has never been available to researchers
before. Pursuant to this case, we will fly an off-the shelf bone
density scanner, which is being hardened for use in space, to develop
new means for future osteoporosis research.
The importance of developing a long-term, robust animal research
platform cannot be underestimated; it was deemed important by a recent
decadal survey as well as the CASIS interim science collegium as key to
utilization and maximization of return on investment. The brand new
opportunities for research this initiative will provide are essential
to developing new business for the National Lab; several pharmaceutical
companies have expressed serious interest and a willingness to use the
ISS NL, and are eagerly awaiting the successful accomplishment of
milestones. This project will also benefit NASA, in that it will be
able to utilize this innovative method and hardware for exploration
focused research.
Moving forward, this effort will greatly expand the ability of NASA
and commercial users to conduct life sciences research in ways that
have never been done before. This will enable ISS NL users to move from
limited fundamental research to applied research, product development,
and ultimately, commercial realization.
Another example of the successful transition of projects from NASA
to CASIS is the MOA with NanoRacks. Through this agreement, CASIS has
reserved space on the first commercial platform available for
researchers outside the ISS in the extreme environments of space. CASIS
will be issuing a formal solicitation for proposals to use this one-of-
a-kind platform for anything from earth observation to materials
research and biological sciences.
This opportunity enables NanoRacks, the provider of sophisticated
shoe-box sized space research hardware, to begin design and fabrication
of the external platform pallet and be ready for flight in early 2013--
almost a year ahead of schedule. By enabling NanoRacks to extend their
``NanoLabs'' outside Station, CASIS is helping to bring a whole new
generation of researchers to the ISS. The deal also fulfills part of
the CASIS mission to enhance capabilities of the ISS NL.
Challenges
As a new organization, CASIS recognizes the inherent obstacles
encountered in standing up a new and unique entity. Similar operations
typically encounter growing pains. CASIS management must endeavor to
maintain independence from NASA, while creating a new way of doing
business on the ISS NL. In such circumstances it is not uncommon to see
management changes and executive turnover. CASIS was no exception in
this regard.
In February 2012, Dr. Jeanne Becker, the CASIS Executive Director,
announced her resignation citing the pressures that she felt at the
head of the organization. New management stepped in to get the
organization on track and to keep it moving forward. Since Dr. Becker's
resignation, CASIS has been developing the initiatives started under
Dr. Becker and executing our mandate.
As we have sought to implement the Cooperative Agreement, we have
encountered several challenges. As with any engineering project or
standup business, there were many issues that Congress, NASA, CASIS and
our guiding documents failed to anticipate or address prior to
implementation. Given the fact that this concept is brand new and that
our mission is to develop and establish innovative ways to promote the
ISS NL, challenges were expected.
CASIS is currently working with NASA regarding the handling of
Intellectual Property and Data Rights, the resolution of which is
essential to securing commitments from commercial users. CASIS
continues to work with NASA to find resolutions to these and other
critical questions, while understanding our role to establish new
pathways and maintain independence from NASA.
How to best capture unsolicited proposals is an area that is
continuing to evolve.
Because unsolicited proposals will by their very nature address
topics CASIS might not be pursuing through a formal solicitation
process, we set out to develop a fair, streamlined process that aligns
with overall goals and organizational structure. As with the formal
solicitation review process, this method takes into account market
realities, resources, and scientific merit. Several unsolicited
proposals are currently moving through the pipeline as test cases for
CASIS procedures and criteria.
Through significant promotion and outreach efforts, CASIS has and
will continue to receive many unsolicited proposals from academic and
commercial investigators hoping to utilize the ISS NL. Many have their
own funds and are only seeking CASIS' support with transportation,
payload integration and/or hardware/experiment design. This unsolicited
interest has driven the CASIS Valuation and Prioritization Framework to
evolve so that we do not disenfranchise potential users of the ISS NL.
History has shown that people have unique and powerful ideas, and CASIS
has created a process that will capture, evaluate and prioritize all
unsolicited commercial and academic proposals to conduct science on the
ISS NL.
Conclusion
Over the past 11 months, CASIS has seen its share of negative
press, in particular, with the resignation of our Executive Director.
Since that time-frame however, CASIS has continued to move forward,
effectively promoting the ISS NL aggressively and passionately. Through
any struggles that might have been perceived, CASIS has continued to
meet or surpass all milestones established for the organization during
its first year.
CASIS is now moving from its standup phase to become a fully-
operational organization. From our first RFP to announcing partnerships
with non-traditional users, CASIS has been making tremendous strides
towards maximizing the use of the ISS NL. Our staff continues to engage
potential users of Station, developing and evolving our processes which
will further identify research opportunities, and with our new Board of
Directors nearly in place, the future for CASIS and the ISS NL is
unquestionably bright.
The entire CASIS team believes Station is the next emerging market
and we plan to promote the world's greatest engineering achievement as
a mechanism to create beyond what was previously thought possible. Time
is quickly passing, and CASIS will continue to be aggressive in our
efforts to bring users on board Station, creating breakthroughs that
will benefit humankind
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Senator Nelson. Thank you so much.
I am going to turn first to Senator Hutchison, and I would
like, in the course of the discussion, if you all would bring
out what is going on on the development of the vaccines, an up-
to-date report.
Senator Hutchison?
Senator Hutchison. First of all, Mr. Royston, thank you for
the report. Because we are anxiously awaiting the appointment
of the board so that we can see the CASIS get up and go and
really start showing results. And I think the board membership
will be crucial, and I am encouraged that you are saying it
will be leading scientists, as well as people in business.
Dr. Pettit, I would like to ask you, if you identified any
areas--and of course, Mr. Reiter, I would like for you to jump
in as well on this area where the ability to perform valuable
research aboard the Space Station could be improved. Are there
any specific suggestions on what we could add or what more
would be effective on the Space Station for the basic research?
Dr. Pettit. Senator, currently, I believe the rate-limiting
resource for doing scientific research on Space Station is the
availability of crew time. We have an amazing infrastructure
that is currently just getting going with the commercialization
of space, for bringing supplies to Space Station, where we have
more scientific apparatus on Space Station, more equipment
waiting to be used, more science experiments in the queue than
we have crew time in the USOS segment with three crew members
that we could spend working on this.
And currently, crew members are working about 13 to 14
hours a day. And out of that, we can get about 6.5 hours of
mission programmatic work done.
And you may wonder why we work 13, 14 hours a day, we only
get 6.5 hours of program work done. That is because we are in a
frontier, a harsh frontier, and we spend 13, 14 hours a day
just to keep the machinery going and keep it possible for human
beings to be there. And you will find this is commensurate with
other frontiers that are harsh on the surface of Earth.
If you go to Antarctica, which I had the opportunity to go
and participate in the Antarctic search for meteorite
expeditions that is jointly funded by National Science
Foundation and NASA, we were looking for meteorites on the
glaciers maybe 200 miles from the South Pole, living in Scott
tents, which have changed very little from the design that
Scott used when he did his expeditions.
We would spend 13 to 14 hours a day working in this
Antarctic environment to enable about 6 hours of actually
mission work gathering meteorites. And we would spend time
working on our snowmobiles. We would spend time just trying to
chip at the ice so we could make water, drying your gear, all
these--shoveling snow so your tents wouldn't get buried by the
sastrugi. And we would work 13, 14 hours a day just to enable
the 6 hours of on-the-mission work.
I think if you look at deep sea, people living in the deep
sea doing work, saturated conditions on platforms, it is
difficult to put human beings in a harsh environment and have
them work more than about 6 hours of on-the-mission work.
And so, what we find in Space Station is commensurate with
what we find on Earth in these harsh environments, and you
reach a limit with a crew of three of how many hours can you
work and still keep your mind, still keep your wits, and still
get enough sleep so that you can respond to contingency
situations? And so, currently, our ability to do the
engineering and organization to get scientific equipment up and
the ideas behind the science experiments, there is no shortage
of that. It is crew time.
Senator Hutchison. So we need to get seven people in that
station. That is good.
Mr. Reiter, did you have anything to add?
Mr. Reiter. Yes, thank you, Senator Hutchison.
I believe considering the fact that we have almost just
transitioned from a buildup phase of the ISS to a quasi steady-
state operation, it is a little bit early maybe to really say
if we already are utilizing the station in an optimum way.
Don has just mentioned we have given parameters, assets.
Crew time is one of them. Up and download and scientific
facilities that have been mentioned. And I think the next years
will show where there are further areas of improvement.
Now from a programmatic point of view, I can imagine that,
for example, in the coordination, in the international
coordination of research subjects, there is space for
optimizing the processes. And in fact, ESA has currently
identified more than 20 joint experiments together with NASA
and in total more than 50 with all the ISS other partners, and
the shared use of this unique orbit research infrastructure and
the assets is of high importance and will help us to see where
there is area for optimization.
In addition, I have to say, of course, looking at the
internal processes, there are certainly areas where I will look
into the future. For example, one of the remarks I am receiving
from the scientific community in Europe is that the turnaround
time maybe can be improved.
This is motivated by comparing it to the time of the
Spacelab, which was flying a couple of years ago onboard the
Shuttle. And I will look into the possibility if we can indeed
decrease the time from the moment where the scientists are
proposing their experiments until they hold the results in
their hands.
Also I think in a structural way we are using multiuser
facilities, big facilities in the various modules, and I will
see if this is the right balance with these huge multiuser
facilities, compared to small experimental hardware which is
dedicated to single experiments. If we can optimize that in
order to improve or to increase the scientific outcome, but
that will need some time of this steady-state operation that we
have just entered.
Senator Hutchison. Thank you very much.
I will have another round, but let us let everybody go.
Senator Nelson. OK.
Senator Hutchison. And I like your virus issue. You need to
cover that.
Senator Nelson. Yes. As a matter of fact, I want to ask you
about that. But I just want to point out that since we were
talking about Sally Ride, that the American astronaut on the
station now, Sunita Williams, will become the second female
commander of the Space Station crew, coming this September. The
first female Space Station commander was Peggy Whitson, who is
presently the Chief Head of the Astronaut Office.
So, again, we see these women pioneering. I thought it was
also in the number of comments that had been made to the press
about Sally that one of the most interesting was from the first
female commander of the Space Shuttle, Eileen Collins. So, with
that backdrop, we proceed.
Would you all--before I turn to Senator Rubio, would you
all share with us, whoever, about the advances on the vaccines?
Mr. Gerstenmaier. I can do that a little bit. We have
learned that almost all bacteria and viruses in space mutate
into a large, different gene strain. And we have flown
salmonella several times on the Shuttle.
Senator Hutchison. I couldn't quite understand. Did you say
large and different?
Mr. Gerstenmaier. Yes. Different, and they mutate----
Senator Hutchison. They mutate? OK.
Mr. Gerstenmaier.--to various strengths of the various
bacteria and viruses. So, for example, salmonella, you fly it
up and you get back a whole variety of different salmonella
than you would typically see here on the ground. Some are
stronger, some are weaker.
Then what we have been able to do or what the investigators
have been able to do is they return these samples to the
ground. They then learn which genes turn on the strength of the
salmonella, which genes potentially turn it off. Then they can
genetically engineer a strain of salmonella that is strong
enough to give the human an immune reaction, but not strong
enough to actually give you the disease, and that is the basis
of the vaccine.
So they have done enough trials on orbit that this looks
very promising. The same thing can occur for viruses. So flu,
you could potentially engineer a flu vaccine ahead of time with
a very quick turnaround.
Again, it is still conceptual, and we don't understand why
bacteria and viruses perform this way in space. The company is
close to taking this into FDA trials. We have done almost
enough work to go complete that activity and take it into
trials. I believe they would still like to fly a few more
samples to space to get some more material back and then maybe
do a little more research before they prepare the final package
that goes to FDA.
We are still discussing with them exactly how they are
going to work that out in the future. But this is one very
promising area where we don't know exactly the reason that this
occurs in space. But if you give it to a creative industry,
they are able to take this phenomena and then apply it in a way
that is tremendously beneficial to us here on the Earth.
So I think this area of research in virus and vaccines has
a lot of interest to us. Arizona State is also looking very
hard at trying to understand why this occurs. So they are
looking at it from kind of the pure research side. What is
unique about the properties of microgravity that causes these
viruses and bacteria to behave in this unique way? So very
promising.
Senator Hutchison. That is going to be essential because
you can't manufacture enough up there to bring back very
easily. So that is really going to make a difference if they
can figure out what that cause is.
Mr. Gerstenmaier. And the advantage is once you understand
which genes are turned on and turned off, then you can
manufacture this vaccine on the Earth. So it no longer requires
you to go to space.
So you just use space to essentially spark your creativity
about which genes are effective in making the virus stronger or
weaker, and then that can be used on the ground then to
actually generate the vaccine.
Senator Nelson. What about the vaccine for the raging
bacteria MRSA?
Mr. Gerstenmaier. It does the same exact phenomena as the
others, and we believe a similar strategy can be developed for
the MRSA, the resistant bacteria that is a tremendous problem
to us in hospitals. So, again, we are working with some
companies to go take a look at that as well.
Senator Hutchison. Could I just pursue this for one second
and ask you if you have got vaccines, and can it also apply to
cancers? And can you grow cancer cells and look at a mutation
and determine if there is a vaccine or an antidote for that?
Mr. Gerstenmaier. It is not as clear in the cancer case,
but we have some researchers that proposed some investigations
along the cancer line. But what we have done is we have flown a
variety of both bacteria and viruses to space to confirm that
it is there.
We have not done enough research in the cancer area to
understand if there is a connection in there. We could get some
of the actual researchers to come, give you some information
specifically.
[The information requested follows:]
Clarification on vaccine development in space
The increased pathogenicity in microgravity comes from changes in
gene expression (which genes turn off and on), but there is no mutation
involved--microorganisms have the same genes before, during, and after
flight. There is no connection between bacterial virulence and cancer.
Arizona State University (ASU) assisted with the discovery on
pathogenicity changes in space, but is not participating in on-orbit
Salmonella or MRSA vaccine development. ASU may do some additional
spaceflight studies in the future to see if they can improve a vaccine
for pneumonia that is in clinical trials.
Astrogenetix has not applied for Investigational New Drug Approval
from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Additional flight work may
be required before they apply--and this could be years away--depending
upon what the company believes is required to ensure a positive finding
from the FDA.
Senator Hutchison. Yes, because I know they have done
breast cancer cell growth in space. And if they could do the
same for that, that would be a medical breakthrough of
phenomenal proportions.
Well, thank you.
Senator Nelson. Mr. Royston, what is CASIS doing to manage
this kind of research?
Mr. Royston. Good question, Senator.
I think with this--and Mr. Gerstenmaier did a good job of
explaining what some of the areas are being looked at and what
has been done. One of the things that I see CASIS really
providing a real baseline to is with our, as you will see soon,
the Board that is coming on, let alone our scientific collegia
that is made up of some of the brightest minds out there in
biotechnology, materials technology, but especially in the bio
areas, that we can take and baseline all this work.
Because as a nonprofit, we are not trying to get new
research money and we are not trying to be somewhat biased
within our research. We need to be able to gather that, put it
together, and that is what we have started doing so that we can
then pass that on to researchers that are looking at areas of
either antigenicity, muscle wasting, or osteoporosis.
But we will have gathered that up and put real facts around
the science and be able to say this is the baseline by which
you can build on.
Senator Nelson. Senator Rubio, before I turn to you, this
prompts another question I have got to ask the two of you that
have been in space for so long. What we are finding in the
annual physical exams is bone loss. What has been your
experience with this since, I would assume, that the bone loss
would be directly proportional to the amount of days in space?
Dr. Pettit. Senator, bone loss is something that we are
starting to get a handle on, and we have an empirical remedy. I
won't call it a solution, an empirical remedy that if you
exercise in the right way, and in some respects a 6-month trip
to Space Station is like spending 6 months in health camp in
terms of the amount of exercise that we do. We found that this
keeps the bone density at bay.
It doesn't prevent it, but it keeps it in a manageable
category. And again, we don't know why. It is an empirical
remedy. We are working on what the fundamental cause of this
is.
And I liken this state to where scurvy was around 1750 when
some British surgeon found out that if you suck on citrus, you
keep scurvy at bay. They didn't know why. It took another 150
years before we even discovered vitamins and the idea that
small amounts of organic compounds are essential in maintaining
human health and then the fundamental cause of scurvy through
lack of Vitamin C.
It is the combination of, first, an empirical solution,
which allows the seaman to go out and not get this disease and
eventually coupled with the basic understanding, and it is a
basic understanding that allows all the people that stay on the
continent that don't go on these voyages to benefit from this
information, which is literally pried from the souls of those
who explore.
And this is what we are doing right now with the bone
density loss. We don't know why. We need to continue the effort
so that we understand fundamentally what is going on because we
have got this gravity knob, which we can now tweak and
experiment on human beings as well as other creatures. And this
allows us to dissect out new pearls from the human physiology.
And we have got this empirical solution that will allow us to
continue to explore space, but we need to understand the
fundamentals, and that is what will bring the benefit to
everybody that stayed firmly planted on this planet.
Senator Nelson. Of course, osteoporosis is a real problem
here on Earth.
Senator Rubio?
STATEMENT OF HON. MARCO RUBIO,
U.S. SENATOR FROM FLORIDA
Senator Rubio. Thank you.
It is actually along the lines of what you have already
been asking. So I will just continue it. You know, one of the
things that we face a challenge with today when you talk to the
everyday man or woman on the street is, well, why are we
spending all this money at this time in our history on these
things when we have so many other needs?
And I think one of the answers to the question is what you
have been talking about today, is all these innovations that
are only possible in that setting. So we have talked about
vaccines. You talked about bone loss, another. What other kinds
of--and I think this is for the whole panel--what other kinds
of advances, whether it is for commercial and consumer
application or health applications, what other kinds of
exciting things are happening up there in that setting that
justify these expenditures which allows us to get people
excited about space travel internationally, but also
domestically?
Dr. Pettit. I will punch the button on the microphone
again.
If you look at fire, fire and its either discovery or
learning how to tame fire is what literally brought us out of
the cave and allows us to have our civilization in terms of
what we know now. Fire gives us our electricity. Fire allows us
to have vehicles, airplanes, and cars and machines. It
literally turn the wheels of our civilization.
Fire has--and from a scientific point of view, we don't
call it fire. We call it combustion. It has a strong
gravitational factor to looking at what is going on in
combustion, and we learn empirically that heat rises, right? We
learn that from fire. Fire goes up.
Space Station now offers us the ability to dissect deeper
down into what the processes are in combustion that literally
turn the wheels of our society by looking at it in an
environment free from gravity, free from the gravitational
driven convection. And this allows us to look at things and
figure out what is going on at a level that you could never see
without taking it to space.
And one experiment that I worked on on Space Station this
last mission was looking at solid air combustion and looking at
it under lower convection, lower differential velocities
between the air and the fuel that was being burned than what is
possible on Earth because of the convection.
And what we found is that things are more flammable than
what we thought. That here on Earth if you lower the convection
to a certain point, the flame goes out. But in microgravity
environment, we found that the combustion will continue at a
state of lower convection than what we can actually go to here
on Earth.
And what the effect of that will be in terms of turning our
wheels in our civilization, I don't know. but it is one small,
little step, incremental step in learning more about how this
combustion process works.
Mr. Royston. Well, Senator, I will just add that when we
look at it again as trying to develop new pathways and develop
new kinds of markets, if you will, for certain things, we kind
of look at it in, I would say, almost four areas. We talked
about life science. And in life science, I think there are just
a vast number of things that we can do in life science.
We talked about muscle wasting, osteoporosis, and tissue
generation. Diagnostics, I think, are really going to bloom in
that area.
Then we move over into material science. I think there are
some very unique things that we will see in the future in the
areas of material science. Nano alignments, crystallization,
different things that we can do by taking that gravity factor
out.
And then we move over into physical science and some
others. But one thing that sometimes gets forgotten, and I look
at it almost as kind of a satellite guy, we have constructed
basically the largest, most powerful spacecraft up there ever
imagined. So with that sitting up there, we can do some really
amazing things in Earth observation.
We can put new instruments up there almost immediately, and
we are working on some of those now with companies. This is a
vehicle that passes almost all land mass every few days, and it
is great platform to do Earth observation.
So there is a plethora of things that are really there, and
I think it is for us to kind of compartmentalize them, put them
out, and then get out to those industries that can really
utilize them.
Mr. Reiter. Senator Rubio, I had last Saturday a 2-hour
interview on a Saturday morning radio show where I got a lot of
phone calls that I had to answer that were exactly related to
the question that you were just asking. Why are we spending so
much money for that?
And as Don just did, I think there is a lot of
justification. Living in a world without gravity allows us to
look into processes that help us to understand how life is
functioning, and into a lot of physical process and that, in
turn, creates certainly tangible benefits for society.
However, in that I would like to add here, if we only look
at those direct tangible benefits, I think we leave out an
important aspect, and that is the fact that gaining knowledge,
gaining insight into the surrounding is a benefit by itself,
even if it is not immediately connected to, let us say, a
utilization here on ground.
The aspect of exploration which Don described is one of
these examples. If we fascinate our young people to get engaged
in these STEM topics, I think that is also a benefit, which is
maybe not directly tangible as maybe creating new materials or
new drugs or vaccines that help us to fight diseases. But I
think we always need to have the view on these overall
benefits, the tangible and not the tangible ones.
And last, not least, I think the cooperation, the
international cooperation, as I also stated before, is an
important aspect of space flight. Working together in space is
a very valuable asset.
Thank you.
Mr. Gerstenmaier. Just add quickly, any physical phenomena
that we have that has a little g in it, the gravity vector,
when you take it to space and you remove that gravity, you get
a different insight into that physical phenomena. And then that
allows researchers and companies to potentially exploit that
benefit like we have been discussing here in new ways we can't
imagine.
But it is tough to predict exactly where those
breakthroughs are and exactly how they are going to pay back.
But if they start, you could potentially start a whole new
industry that never existed before.
The other thing it does, I think, to Thomas's point, the
intangible benefits, one thing is the creativity aspect. If you
look at these student experiments that are flying up on the
Japanese vehicle, the one student's experiment was to take a
jumping spider and fly it into space.
And this spider knows how to jump from one spot to another
based on the gravity that affects the spider. So he knows
exactly how to jump on his prey. What will happen in zero
gravity where he no longer has that gravity?
Will this spider now learn and adapt to jump in a different
direction as the humans do after a while? When they first get
on space, they see these guys bump around. But then after a
couple of days, they are honed in on the zero g phenomena, and
they can float pretty effortlessly. Will the spider do that?
But what was interesting is this student in his own
creativity, he imagined what this would be like, and he thought
about a physical phenomena, a physical insect, and said, well,
how will that perform?
And that creativity and that ingenuity and that excitement
in this student is just an amazing thing going forward. So how
do you quantify that as being worthwhile?
Senator Rubio. What did the spider do?
Mr. Gerstenmaier. We don't know.
Senator Rubio. Oh, OK.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Gerstenmaier. Spider news this fall, when he actually--
Sunita will do the experiment. But that is the point. It is
this inquisitive nature that really brings out the best in us
and can really compel a nation to be exceptional.
Senator Rubio. Let us know about the spider when that
happens. Now I am dying to know.
Mr. Gerstenmaier. Will do.
Senator Rubio. Thank you. Thank you. Those are great
answers.
Senator Nelson. Senator Boozman?
Senator Boozman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gerstenmaier, one of the things that comes up a little
bit, we have lost American access to the Space Station using
our Space Shuttle orbiters. I guess the question is have we
lost a significant barter/able asset that perhaps will diminish
the amount of research that we will be able to accomplish in
the next 8 or 10 years?
And from where we stand today, will our research be
increasing? Our capacity, will it be increasing or decreasing
as time goes by?
Mr. Gerstenmaier. I think, as we have discussed earlier,
from a cargo standpoint, we have a pretty good ability to get
cargo to Space Station. And we have the HTV, the Japanese cargo
vehicle, which is on its way to station. We have the ATV, which
is from the European Space Agency, currently attached.
We saw the SpaceX demonstration this year. They are going
to schedule to fly again possibly this fall in the October
timeframe. Then Orbital is working on their cargo vehicle. Its
demonstration flight should be probably by the end of this
year, probably in the December timeframe.
So we see we have a pretty robust with multiple vehicles
that can carry cargo to station. That is important from a
researcher to make sure that their research experiments get to
space and get to Space Station.
On the crew side, we have the Soyuz vehicle. We would like
to get a redundant capability for that as soon as we can. That
is the basis of our U.S. commercial crew transportation
activity. We need to bring that online as soon as we can to
have a redundant way of getting crew to space.
I am not concerned about the Russians' ability to do that.
It is just our environment is very tough. You know, when we had
the Columbia tragedy, the Soyuz was able to back up our
transportation and was able to keep this continuous crew string
that Senator Nelson talked about possible onboard Space
Station. So we were able to use that Soyuz vehicle during that
time.
Right now, we are essentially single string, with one way
to get crew to orbit, the Russian Soyuz. We would like to get
our U.S. crew transportation system online as soon as we can,
and we are working that as fast as we can. Hopefully, by 2015,
2016 timeframe.
Senator Boozman. Very good. Thank you.
Let me ask you guys, and again, whoever would like to
comment. But as a scientist and then just as a citizen, we have
talked about the spider. We have talked about bone loss. I am
an optometrist, an eye doctor, and interested because I know
there has been some visual things that have gone on.
But all of this research is going on up there and down
here. I guess my question would be what excites you the most
about specific areas that we are doing that you see the most
potential in the future? If you had to pick a thing, what would
it be?
Dr. Pettit. I think one of the most exciting parts of going
into a frontier are the pages of the book that don't have any
writing on them yet because you don't even know enough to know
should this be the exciting part? Should this be the
significant part?
And certainly, you bring up the idea of these eye maladies
where about 20 percent of the people living for long duration
time on Space Station come back with these wrinkles on your
retina, and there is a name. I think they call them choroidal
folds, these technical names. You know how engineers and
scientists, they like to talk tech.
But what they really are, are wrinkles on your retina. And
depending on where they go, they can impact your vision. And we
currently haven't a clue as to why they form. There are certain
mechanisms for these wrinkles forming with people on the ground
that have to do with elevated intracranial pressure, again,
another term for just saying the pressure in your brain.
And we have just learned that these wrinkles can form on
station crew members that have low to normal intracranial
pressure. So thoughts on why these things form, we haven't a
clue now.
And another thing that makes this really fascinating is
that they are predominantly in the right eye. So why is it just
the right eye. Sometimes the left eye, but mostly the right
eye. And it is like a Sherlock Holmes story. These are little
nuggets. These are little clues scattered about which tell us
something about the human physiology.
And again, the pages of this particular chapter have not
even been written because we are currently in the process of
writing them. The answers are clearly not in the back of the
book. And when you go into a frontier, it doesn't get any
better than this.
Senator Boozman. Mr. Royston?
Mr. Royston. Yes, Senator. I would add to that one of our
challenges is, and I think all of us in this room agree, is
time, right? So we are looking at how we can get success as
fast as possible.
So, one, it continues to show everybody that we need to
keep this great outpost going. We need to continue the
research. But for us and for my organization, one of the things
we try to kind of bubble up to the top are those things that we
think can have the earliest impacts.
And we mentioned osteoporosis, and one of the things there
is it is a good example of a known. We know there is bone loss
in space. So in order to test osteoporotic drugs, you need bone
loss.
And typically, to get that, you have to test older patients
that have other problems, have other things. Where if we are
able to go into space and I have an animal model there that is
still in good health, but their bone loss goes down by 80
percent, that is an unbelievable test bed to be able to look at
drugs and rapidly do either first-fail scenarios or be able to
determine what is going to work and what isn't.
Now, as we talked about with either virulents or some of
the other things, I think it is taking the knowns that we have,
with protein crystal growth being another one. We know that we
can grow better proteins. We can do better crystallization
because we have taken the vector out, that gravity vector, as
Bill mentioned. But our goal is to really look at the knowns
that we have up there in parallel with the unknowns.
So we are trying to use what we know is current capability
and things that are going to work with the fundamental science
of why is it happening, and what is it doing? So from our
perspective, it is a balancing act. We want to get moving on
the things we know will make a good research test bed and
development, but also don't forget the fundamental science and
the whys that are happening.
Senator Boozman. Yes. I think it really important in the
sense that one of the things that you all have to do a good job
as components of the agency is being able to relate what the
positive things that are going on. And certainly, we as members
that are very supportive, the Committee, have to do a good job
of being able to relate to the public. The fact that we are
spending a lot of money, but this is the--these are the very
positive side effects that we are getting as a result of that.
So thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Hutchison. Mr. Chairman?
Senator Nelson. Senator Hutchison, of course.
Senator Hutchison. Can I ask one quick question? Because I
have got to go, but I wanted to ask Mr. Gerstenmaier a two-
pronged question. Number one, is there the possibility of
extending the life safely of the Space Station beyond 2020? And
if so, is it being considered?
And the second part of the question is, I am fascinated by
this NASA picture on the Earth observation issues that have
been mentioned by several of our astronauts and researchers,
and the importance of being able to see the Earth for river
plumes, for flood depth, for earthquakes or rather volcanoes
that we don't feel yet, but you can see it from space, managing
fisheries, oil spills. All those things.
Can we put an orbiting satellite up with cameras that could
do what the Space Station does? Or are we in need of having
another capability to do these observations?
Mr. Gerstenmaier. I will try to do both of these, and then
these guys can fill in a little bit. The first one, beyond
2020, we are looking technically to make sure that there is not
any problems with extending Space Station. So we are looking at
physical system seals, rotary joints, those kind of things,
major components.
What is the life-limiting factor for Space Station? And we
are doing that with our partners, taking a look at that. And we
think we can, from a physical standpoint, station can be
operable probably to 2028. We are still looking at structural
life and other things. So we have done those investigations.
I think it is important to us at this point to really focus
on, as these guys have discussed earlier, of utilizing station
and showing some benefit and return back. And if we can do that
in the next couple years, then I think the discussion about do
we continue beyond 2020 becomes a little bit of an easier
discussion.
So at this kind of juncture of where we are transitioning
from, from assembly to research, I think we need to get a
little bit more of this research under our belts and to make
the systems proven a little bit that we can then sell those to
our governments and folks to move forward to extend station.
To the other question about Earth observation, I think
station is a tremendous platform to do technology development.
So if you have potentially a new sensor that it is maybe not
mature enough to actually put on a dedicated satellite, you
could fly it very easily to station, mount it on station, get
some quick results from it, and determine that, hey, this is
really a good device to go use.
And then after you determine that, then you could go put it
on a dedicated satellite. We have done that with a couple. We
have the ISRV, which is essentially a telescope that will be
set in the window observation facility. It is on HTV. It will
look for disaster areas. It is part of the severe network,
where you can call up for a disaster. You can get location
information.
There is also, I think, the HICO-RAIDS experiment, which
may have been the pictures you were showing to me there.
Senator Hutchison. It is.
Mr. Gerstenmaier. Yes, that is a hyperspectral spectrometer
that was developed by the Naval Research Laboratory. That was a
very quick demonstration to see what could be done onboard
Space Station with a quick device to get up and see what kind
of information they could get out of it.
It has actually operated for much longer than they
anticipated, but it is a good test bed for those quick kind of
tests to make sure that the equipment or the device you want to
fly is really the right device to fly.
Senator Hutchison. Thank you very much.
Dr. Pettit. If I could add a couple of words? Oftentimes,
it takes a human being in the loop to figure out what it is you
really want to measure in the first place. And for example, you
could put a satellite platform in orbit, and you know that you
shouldn't look at the direct reflection of the sun off the
ocean--that is called sun glint--because it could burn out your
detector.
Now you put an astronaut on orbit, and sometimes they don't
have the kind of common sense that you would think they should
have. And we will go ahead and look at the sun glint off the
ocean because, wow, it is neat. And then all of a sudden, you
could see some structure off the surface of the ocean. Because
of the way the lighting is coming directly from the sun, you
can see things that nobody knew was there before because, of
course, you don't take a detector on a satellite and let it
look at a direct reflection from the sun.
And once you make that discovery, then you could optimize a
satellite platform for making that observation. And it could
collect more data, possibly better data than what the human
being could have made in the first place. But it takes a human
being somewhere in the loop to realize that you can look
outside of where your initial design was made by people on the
ground who have never been in space.
Senator Hutchison. So important. That is so important
because we do have people who say, oh, we can do all of this so
much more efficiently with no people, and just machines. But
that is one very good testimonial.
Dr. Pettit. One thing to say about that. In space, there is
no issue with machines, robots, and human beings working
together. We work together hand and end effector in space, no
issues.
Where I find the conflict really occurs is here on the
Earth. So, in space, astronauts love robots because it allows
us----
Senator Hutchison. And in that 4 square miles in
Washington, D.C.
[Laughter.]
Dr. Pettit. Yes.
Senator Hutchison. Thank you very much.
Mr. Reiter. Senator, if I may add just a short comment
also? From the European point of view, we have launched an
announcement of opportunity exactly in this regime last year,
asking in the Earth observation community if there is, indeed,
some interest to use ISS as a platform for Earth observation.
And we received, indeed, a lot of replies, more than 80, if
I remember correctly. And all very valuable replies, which were
in support of using the ISS for Earth observation.
And in fact, we have on the Columbus module, we have a
sensor installed, a sensor that receives the identification
signals from ships. And that is the classic application where
you design the sensor, optimize it, and then bring it in future
on satellites in an optimized way.
And I think that is a good example how, indeed, the
International Space Station, in addition to the examples that
Bill and Don just gave, can be used in the area of observation.
Senator Hutchison. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Senator Nelson. As you have to leave, Senator Hutchison, I
am going to follow up asking about some things on cancer that
you raised, and we will get that information to you.
Years ago, in the very beginning of the protein crystal
growth, which CASIS, Mr. Royston, is now directing a number of
those experiments. Originally, and when I participated in this
experiment, it was actually proposed by the Comprehensive
Cancer Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
And that over the years has morphed into the protein
crystallography center. And I would be curious from that very
first experiment of which we had some dramatic results.
You take away the influence of gravity in growing protein
crystals. They grew much larger and, at first blush, much more
pure. The idea by the cancer center at UAB was, well, if you
can then back on Earth determine the molecular structure of the
protein, you could manipulate it to then do what you wanted
with regard to cancer research.
Now this protein crystallography has been going on for
years, and you are directing some of it right now, Mr. Royston.
What has happened since January 1986 on this?
Mr. Royston. And Senator, by no means am I an expert in
this area. So I will--I will do my best to convey from the
science team, and some of the people that flew with you and
worked with you have still been involved. I think it is an
area, if we had more biotech representation here, we would hear
that it is still an ongoing methodology by which a lot of drugs
are looked at.
Again, I think in the past, if we looked at the work there,
it was somewhat sporadic. There were different types of
equipment that were being looked at, being used. The Japanese
have continued over the years to continue that research.
What our goal is, and we have just put a solicitation out,
is to really look at the different methods, look at the
different hardware that can be used. NASA has a project that is
going on and we are partnering with to be able to, I don't want
to say once and for all, but really look at this objectively,
to be able to look at different ways to crystallize proteins
and the methods by which we can look at them eventually on
orbit, but also bring them back down in a way that we can get
them into the right equipment areas or the right labs that can
then look at them and use them for what they are for.
But I think we have heard it clearly, talking to large
pharma, bio-tech companies. They are very interested in this. I
think finally now that we have station, everything is built,
where we have a solid platform up there, good transportation
capability back and forth, I think we will see protein
crystallization is one of the areas that will grow on orbit, no
doubt.
Senator Nelson. Mr. Gerstenmaier, we worry about space
debris and, from time to time, have to worry about lifting the
orbit of the station in order to avoid space debris. Tell us
about that.
Mr. Gerstenmaier. We have some shielding on the outside of
station that protects us from fairly small particles. Then
there are the large objects that we can track, we can determine
that they may come close to Space Station. We have a box that
when we determine they will come inside that box, we actually
can do a maneuver and maneuver Space Station to avoid a
collision with those larger objects.
And then there is another class in between that we really
can't track yet, and they are actually larger than our shields.
And we are at risk from those objects. We have protected the
station as best we could. It has the best protection system of
any spacecraft we have flown on the outside.
We are continuing to improve that. We have made changes to
both the Soyuz and the Progress vehicle. There will be a
Russian EVA in August to actually add some more shielding to
the Russian segment, which will help with debris protection.
We also put onboard recently software. It used to take us
about 3 days to get ready to do a debris avoidance maneuver.
That software now is resident onboard, and we should be able to
do a maneuver much quicker. We are working with our Russian
colleagues to actually get the details of how we could do that.
So, therefore, we could get identified from our tracking
assets that there is an object that is going to come very close
to station, and we should be able to maneuver in a very short
period of time. So we are actively trying to improve the debris
protection on station, both from a physical be able to move it
standpoint and also improve the shielding onboard station.
Senator Nelson. And I can't help but point out that debris
is getting to be a problem in space, and the Chinese really
added to the debris. When they did their ASAT test, it added
tens of thousands of particles at sufficiently high altitude
that it is going to take a long time for gravity to pull those
items back to Earth.
And of course, that is what we and the other space-faring
nations have to worry about, and we try to track these, as Mr.
Gerstenmaier said.
Mr. Royston, let me ask you what is CASIS doing to reduce
the time it takes to identify and fund research opportunities
and get those experiments up to the station?
Mr. Royston. That is a great question, Senator. As you
know, and I think everybody in this room knows, businesses and
the marketplace moves at the speed of light today. So if we go
to them and say that, well, 4 years from now we think we can
get you on orbit, and we might be able to do some good stuff,
it is not going to work.
So one thing, I definitely want to acknowledge the effort
that has been on Bill's side, on the NASA side in the Payloads
Office, to transition from their construction phase and now
into their operational phase. And our organization works with
the Payloads Office on a day-to-day basis on how we can
streamline those--get more efficiency, streamline the processes
and procedures by which to do that.
And then the other thing is CASIS; what we want to be able
to go out into industry and talk about with potential customers
is the fact that we handle all of that for you, that we can be
the organization which allows you to think of the National Lab
as just another lab. It is a lab like going from here in
Washington down to Raleigh to do some experiments.
You don't have to worry about rockets and all kinds of
different paperwork and science advisory panels and everything
else. We are there to do that for you, and I think we are
making real progress in that. And I think that is really our
key, again, to attracting some of the big market that we want
to bring into the National Lab, is to show them that it isn't
painful to get up there.
It might be 300 miles away, and it might be vertical, but
it is not a big deal. It is a great laboratory. There is great
opportunity, and we will hold your hand and get you there
painlessly.
Senator Nelson. Since we were talking about bone density
loss, why don't you tell us about you are getting ready to fly
a bone density scanner, and how does that play into the future
osteoporosis research?
Mr. Royston. Well, we are not quite ready to fly it yet. We
are doing a study right now with reards to what are the best
designs to be able to put a small bone scanner up there. So if
we look at osteoporosis research, for instance, and we have an
animal model that we are going to look at and be able to
experiment with. One of our concerns, and I think we know it,
as far as transportation--and we are coming online with other
options--is down mass. How can we get things back to Earth?
And I think what the real focus in the short term needs to
be is how we can do things on orbit and get the data that we
need. That is a perfect example of why we need to have a small
bone scanner up there. So we are watching the effects of the
osteoporosis drugs on a day-to-day basis without being able to
bring specimens back or being able to do that.
And I think that is really key not only as a bone scanner,
but other equipment, whether it is the crystallography,
Senator, as you mentioned, that we could do some determination
or some review of the data or the crystals on orbit without
waiting for the time it takes to get them back down to Earth.
Dr. Pettit. And Senator, I would like to add that it is
important to be able to collect more data points, particularly
on human physiology, than preflight and post flight because
there is a lot that happens in between, and we have no data.
And we are working on improving that.
This bone scanner would allow us one more way to poke and
pummel astronauts on orbit to extract more nuggets of
information from their physiology. And we are also working on
getting advanced eye diagnostics on orbit, too, again to try to
crack this problem of what is happening? What is causing the
wrinkles in the eyes? When do they form?
Do they form right away, or do they form toward the end of
your mission? We don't know. And the only way we are going to
find out the history of what happens when you get on orbit is
to have these advanced diagnostic techniques that have been
packaged from big laboratories and big centers on Earth somehow
shrunk down, somehow that can work in the confines of this
orbital frontier.
And then we can use these instruments to collect data from
the astronauts on orbit, and one side benefit to this is every
time we can an advanced piece of equipment, medical diagnostics
that we can use on Space Station, there shows up numerous
places on Earth where this same technology can be applied to
remote places that will help diagnose and correct ailments for
people that never leave the planet.
Senator Nelson. You know, we have come a long way. Mr.
Gerstenmaier, remember when we flew John Glenn 50 years ago? We
did not know what was going to happen to the human eyeball. And
it has been rather extraordinary, our ability to experience
space.
Final question for Dr. Pettit and Mr. Reiter. What do you
think we can do to raise the awareness of this unique structure
that is out there that the public does not have much awareness
of?
Dr. Pettit. One way is through education of our students
because the students are the future of this country. And they
have--they have the wherewithal to take us to the next phase,
and we don't want them to forget about what it means to fly in
space and do this exploration.
And when I talk to students, I like to ask, ``How many of
you would like to do my job?'' And you would be amazed at how
many want to do this. And I think you could say that there are
more students that want to become an astronaut and fly in space
than want to become President of the United States.
And I think that is a good thing because we need them, we
need the students in science and engineering and technology,
and they need to have a strong foundation of math in order to
work in those fields. And what would break my heart would be to
talk to students and say we no longer can fly in space. We
don't do that anymore. And that, that would break my heart.
And we need to make sure that we can talk to the next
generation and wind them up and point them in the right
direction and let them carry the fire.
Senator Nelson. And I can pretty well tell you we will.
Mr. Reiter?
Mr. Reiter. I can only support what Don has just mentioned.
I think that these occasions where we directly tie in pupils
from all over the world in experiments onboard the Space
Station really show a remarkable effect. And Bill gave some
experiments of the spider that is now on orbit, becoming the
astrospider. And Don gave some experiments.
Andre Kuipers, who was in orbit together with Don, he had
some dedicated school experiments where there was a direct
link, a live link to the station, and that was then
disseminated in the schools not only in the Netherlands, but I
think across the world.
And there are beautiful examples. I just had beginning of
the year the opportunity to attend an event which was dedicated
to a U.S. experiment, SPHERES it is called, where you can bring
developed software for little satellites that are flying with
carbon dioxide cartridges, and you can let university students
develop guidance, navigation, control algorithms, and that
found a great interest all across the world.
So I think here also there is a fantastic opportunity to
work together, and I think also in bringing these experiences
into schoolbooks can steer the interest of our young generation
in space, in exploration, and steer this what is I believe in
our genes to be curious, to see what is beyond the horizon.
Thank you.
Senator Nelson. Thank you.
Senator Boozman?
Senator Boozman. No questions.
Senator Nelson. Gentlemen, thank you. A most informative
session.
Thank you, and the meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:40 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
Prepared Statement of Hon. John D. Rockefeller IV,
U.S. Senator from West Virginia
Assembly of the International Space Station was completed last
year. It took five space agencies from around the world to build it.
While this by itself is quite an achievement, our attention has shifted
from the construction phase to maximizing the scientific return on this
investment. At its core, the space station is a laboratory and a
classroom--a scientific and educational asset available not only to
NASA, but to all Americans and the international community for
research, discovery, and education. We have already seen important
discoveries and progress from research conducted on the space station--
such as studies of treatments for debilitating diseases like
osteoporosis, creation of new materials that the automotive and
aerospace industries are interested in using, development of vaccines
that may one day prevent deadly infections, and fundamental studies of
the nature of our universe.
The availability of half of the U.S. portion of the station for
national lab managed research opens up the microgravity environment to
private companies to test and develop new products and services for use
on Earth. A constant American presence on the space station also
presents a unique opportunity to inspire our children's interest in
science, technology, engineering, and mathematics--the so-called STEM
fields. We know how critically important STEM skills are for jobs of
the twenty-first century, whether it is in advanced manufacturing,
pharmaceuticals development, new computing technologies, or designing
the next generation of spacecraft.
Astronauts on the space station reach students around the world.
Elementary school children can talk to and interact with astronauts via
communication links through NASA, asking questions and watching the
astronauts conduct experiments live 220 miles above the Earth. Just a
few months ago here in Washington, D.C., I met with the student
finalists from the YouTube Space Lab Challenge, an international
contest for high school students to design an in-space science
experiment. More than 2000 project ideas were submitted from students
in more than 80 countries. Experiments from the two winning teams--one
from Michigan and one from Egypt--lifted off for the space station just
last Friday on board a Japanese robotic cargo spacecraft that is
scheduled to berth with the space station this Friday. The students'
experiments will be conducted by a NASA astronaut onboard the station.
This is an unparalleled opportunity for these aspiring young scientists
that I hope will encourage them and their peers to continue to pursue
degrees and careers in science and engineering.
Our time with the International Space Station is limited and I want
to see this nation look back on our investment as both a great
achievement and a stepping stone toward our continued scientific
leadership, both here on Earth and in space. I look forward to the
testimony from our witnesses today and to their perspectives on how we
make the most of this unique national asset.
______
Response to Written Question Submitted by Hon. Bill Nelson to
Donald R. Pettit
Maximizing ISS Utilization
Question. Now that construction of the space station is complete,
the goal has shifted to getting the most out of the station's research
capacity. What metrics would tell us we are doing a good job maximizing
productivity of the station?
Answer. As Mr. Gerstenmaier reports in his answer to Senator
Nelson's question, NASA tracks many metrics that show different
dimensions of the productivity of the International Space Station
(ISS). Monthly productivity metrics are collected on such metrics as
numbers of investigations and investigators, science disciplines
accommodated, facility occupancy, dedicated research crew time, numbers
of countries involved, numbers of students reached, and numbers of
scientific publications.
From my perspective as an ISS astronaut, I would offer the
following for consideration on utilization metrics for the ISS, which
could be the basis for future improvements in monitoring and defining
ISS progress.
The International Space Station is a diverse laboratory in a harsh
frontier environment where defining a single metric for success is
difficult if not counterproductive. There are three distinct categories
I believe are worthy of a metric to evaluate progress and each should
be considered when it is appropriate to do so. One is for a mission
covering a particular six person crew, another is for an annual review
for the Space Station as a whole, and a third is for internal metrics
developed as administrative/operational tools to aide in the allocation
of crew time and resources.
For a particular mission covering a six month period where nine
individuals rotate to maintain a six person crew, the metrics should be
based on the following: crew health, vehicle health, and completing the
required work. Crew health covers the safety and well being of the
crew, including following prescribed countermeasures and maintaining
professional positive attitudes towards crewmates and mission control.
Vehicle health is a divided responsibility between mission control and
crew. Repair and maintenance of systems and research apparatus is
essential to sustaining an operating vehicle in a harsh environment
where logistic for spare parts and limited crew time can complicate
matters. Vigilance by both crew and mission control is required to
extend the useable life for vehicle thus creating an efficient safe
environment where the mission work can be completed. The crew is part
of a large international team that includes their crewmates as well as
the control centers scattered over many countries. Being able to work
together as a team is essential to mission success. Completing the
required work is self-explanatory and includes completing the research
objectives defined.
An annual review for the Space Station as a whole includes research
accomplishments as well as the overall state of the vehicle health.
Accomplishments include both advances in scientific research as well as
engineering research (engineering research includes prototype
spacecraft systems operating in space using Space Station as a test
platform). This evaluation should use the time-tested practice of
external review for proposed projects and peer review when the final
papers are published (this is currently being done for research on
Space Station). This review process will ensure high quality ideas,
projects, and final technical publications are maintained. The overall
state of the vehicle should be reviewed on an annual basis to track
factors affecting the long-term health and lifetime of the stack.
Universities and National Laboratories (such as Los Alamos National
Laboratory where I worked for 12 years) rely on similar peer review to
maintain high quality research and use peer reviewed publications,
citation indexes (how often a paper is cited by others working in the
field), and patents as a part of the evaluation metric.
It is essential to realize that it takes years to bring research to
fruition whether at universities, national laboratories, or now, Space
Station. Patience must be exercised when evaluating the research
returns on a new endeavor (Space Station was just completed and placed
in a full operational state last year).
Internal metrics developed as administrative/operational tools are
useful to aide in the allocation of crew time and resources. Such
metrics, when taken out of context, may seem ill-fit; however, these
were never intended as a means to evaluate over all Space Station
performance. For example, consider maintenance and repair of a complex
vehicle in a harsh environment (this applies to sail boats as well as
to Space Station). If left unchecked, maintenance and repair could
expand to take all available crew time. To ensure that a significant
fraction will be available for mission research, an internal metric has
been set to reserve about 1/3 of mission related crew work hours for
research. This metric, as an internal administrative tool, has caused
critical review of all maintenance procedures, resulting in a workable
compromise where both research and maintenance are completed. The
practice of using such internal metrics needs to be understood and kept
separate from the metrics for evaluating Space Station.
In closing, I believe there are three useful types of metrics for
evaluating Space Station: (1) for the mission metrics of a particular 6
person crew, (2) as an annual review of Space Station research and
vehicle health, and (3) internal metrics used as administrative tools
for allocation of resources and crew time. All three of these have a
different emphasis and are each in turn useful when applied to their
particular situation.
______
Response to Written Question Submitted by Hon. Bill Nelson to
William H. Gerstenmaier
Maximizing ISS Utilization
Question. Now that construction of the space station is complete,
the goal has shifted to getting the most out of the station's research
capacity. What metrics would tell us we are doing a good job maximizing
productivity of the station?
Answer. NASA tracks many metrics that show different dimensions of
the productivity of the International Space Station (ISS). Monthly
productivity metrics are collected on such metrics as numbers of
investigations and investigators, science disciplines accommodated,
facility occupancy, dedicated research crewtime, numbers of countries
involved, numbers of students reached, and numbers of scientific
publications. For example, the number of scientists participating in
ISS research has grown to over 400 on every Expedition and the number
of countries involved in ISS research and education activities during
an Expedition is typically over 30. The ISS is a growing resource for
the science community, serving such diverse science disciplines as
biotechnology and biology, human research, physical science, Earth and
space science, technology demonstrations and education. Over 31 million
students in the United States have participated in demonstrations
performed by crewmembers aboard the ISS over its lifetime. The ISS is
stimulating young people to ask questions and pursue knowledge. With a
careful review and adjustment of crew commitments, the crew time for
research has consistently grown, and now typically exceeds the minimum
requirement of 35 hours per week.
______
Response to Written Question Submitted by Hon. Bill Nelson to
Thomas Reiter
Maximizing ISS Utilization
Question. Now that construction of the space station is complete,
the goal has shifted to getting the most out of the station's research
capacity. What metrics would tell us we are doing a good job maximizing
productivity of the Station?
Answer. Any metrics (with the objective to compare the ISS ``R&D
productivity'' with other terrestrial research establishment) is
problematic as ``routine'' R&D on the ISS faces peculiar constraints
and only recently changed from the build-up phase of ISS to an ``steady
state utilisation operation''. Furthermore, research is not the only
rationale for the ISS. Nevertheless, e.g., the following (not always
quantifiable) parameters should be maximized:
Number and impact of articles in peer-reviewed scientific
magazines (remark: the challenge in interpreting this count
comes of the fact that it can take 5-10 years for a scientific
impact to be known, and because today there is no real bench
mark for comparison of what we accomplish in a space-based
laboratory with research that can't possibly be done elsewhere)
Number of patents or spin-offs (remark: the challenge in
interpreting these comes of the fact that not all commercial
intellectual property is patented or licensed, that commercial
entities sometimes conceal the space provenance of their
knowledge for competitive advantage)
Degree of compliance/mapping of ISS utilisation projects
with research priorities (as independently defined by
scientific community)
The degree to which we have minimized ``turnaround time'',
i.e., the time from the moment a proposal is accepted until the
PI holds the data/samples in his/her hands
Relevance of ISS utilisation for preparing/demonstrating
crucial technologies for exploration
Share of crew time spent for utilisation vs. non-utilisation
activities (possible comparison with similar remote research
facilities such as Concordia in Antarctic, NEEMO, etc.)
Number of student internships and thesis, education events,
student participation in science activities, etc. that are
related to ISS utilisation
Number of countries that can use the ISS for R&D (ESA e.g.,
offers utilisation opportunities to all EU countries; this is
of particular importance for Europe, where not all European
states are member of ESA)
It should be noted that the productivity of the ISS unfolds in many
dimensions, which cannot be all exploited to their maximum at the same
time due to limited resources. For example a simultaneous maximisation
of both scientific/institutional and industrial/commercial utilisation
is not possible. In reality a natural balance (driven by demand and
merits) is considered being more realistic and providing different
benefits within the various domains.
NASA and ESA are working closely with the other ISS partners to
track all research accomplishments and benefits jointly, and to
coordinate our assessments and metrics of productivity. We look forward
to working with NASA on new ``science of science'' approaches to
address some of the measurement challenges mentioned above.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Bill Nelson to
James D. Royston
Maximizing ISS Utilization
Question 1. Now that construction of the space station is complete,
the goal has shifted to getting the most out of the station's research
capacity. What metrics would tell us we are doing a good job maximizing
productivity of the station?
Answer. CASIS is focused strictly on quality opportunities to
utilize Station, which is why all potential projects are subject to the
Valuation and Prioritization process. This process was designed to
identify projects with the most scientific merit and commercial promise
and best return to U.S. taxpayers on their investment.
CASIS currently has over 30 projects under review representing a
myriad of research interests. The breadth of both proposed research and
sponsoring institutions, both academic and commercial, serves as a good
metric of increasing interest and forthcoming productivity.
Additionally, plans to increase the ISS crew to seven would boost
available crew time from 33 hours to 75 hours per week. This would
greatly increase R & D productivity.
ISS Commercial Research
Question 2. Mr. Royston, what is the status of the transfer of
existing National Laboratory agreements from NASA to CASIS?
Answer. All existing commercial agreements have been transferred to
CASIS, with the exception of two. In accordance with the process
established with NASA, agreements with other Federal agencies are next
in line to be transferred to CASIS.
Question 3. Please explain the ``extenuating circumstances'' you
mention in your written testimony preventing the transition of two
projects.
Answer. One SAA is with Astrogenetix, a commercial space-based
research company from Austin, Texas. The original research performed by
Astrogenetix on ISS was in the area of virulence and vaccine target
development as part of the initial NL Pathfinder research program. The
transfer agreement has been under review by Astrogenetix since February
2012, and they have not yet decided if they want to continue this
project.
The other remaining agreement is with Arizona State University's
Bioscience Institute. The Institute's research in the area of virulence
and vaccine development was part of the initial NL Pathfinder research
program. CASIS has worked with ASU to address questions about the
transition and a Memorandum of Understanding is currently being
negotiated. They requested additional information about the CASIS
Valuation and Project Approval process that was provided to ASU's legal
department in July 2012. CASIS is confident the transition should take
place soon.
______
Response to Written Question Submitted by Hon. Amy Klobuchar to
William H. Gerstenmaier
Question. Mr. Gerstenmaier, we were saddened to hear on Monday of
the loss of the first American female astronaut, Sally Ride, to cancer.
She will be remembered as a courageous pioneer who inspired girls
everywhere to be excited about science. 25 years later in 2008,
Minnesota native Dr. Karen Nyberg became the 50th woman to enter outer
space and is scheduled to return to the ISS in May of next year.
Despite such advances, entrance among girls and young women into fields
such as physics and engineering continues to be disproportionately
lower than men.
Twenty-nine years after Sally Ride's first trailblazing mission,
what can NASA do to inspire more women to enter the STEM fields, which
are so critical to America's continued prosperity?
Answer. We were equally saddened by the loss of Dr. Ride. She was
an American hero, and a role model for generations of girls. NASA has a
longstanding education partnership with Sally Ride Science, and they
manage the EarthKam activity for the Agency, which allows middle school
students to study the Earth using a camera installed on the
International Space Station. We also agree with you that it is
important to continue working to increase the number of women entering
the STEM fields. NASA is taking advantage of its unique resources,
including people, assets, and facilities to further inspire women and
girls.
Recent data released this year by the Girl Scouts Research
Institute shows that girls are already interested in math and science.
However, they are also interested in numerous other fields of study,
which compete with STEM fields when choosing majors in college and
careers thereafter. A major finding of the study showed that female
mentors in STEM fields and exposure to those fields is important when
girls choose their future paths. As such, NASA is committed to
providing mentors and numerous outreach opportunities to young women
and girls. The following are only a small representation of the varied
opportunities NASA offers across the nation, in hopes of inspiring the
next generation of young women and girls to enter and remain in
science, technology, engineering, and math careers.
The referenced Girl Scouts Research Institute Report can be found
here: http://www.girlscouts.org/research/publications/stem/
generation_stem_what_girls_
say.asp
NASA facilitates volunteer opportunities for our STEM employees for
the mentoring of young girls through the following programs:
Aspire 2 Inspire (http://women.nasa.gov/a2i)
NASA G.I.R.L.S. (http://women.nasa.gov/nasa-g-i-r-l-s)
NASA WISH (http://women.nasa.gov/wish)
NASA SISTER (http://women.nasa.gov/outreach-programs)
NASA is committed to allowing our employees to perform outreach
activities as their schedules permit. Many of these outreach activities
focus on underrepresented groups in STEM. For example, through NASA's
Teaching From Space program, the program targeted female middle school
students with the development of a ``Women in STEM'' video. In
collaboration with NASA Public Affairs Office, Teaching From Space used
the STS-131 mission and the role of crewmember Dottie Metcalf-
Lindenburger, a former classroom teacher turned astronaut, to showcase
NASA career opportunities for females (http://www.nasa.gov/audience/
foreducators/top
nav/materials/listbytype/Women_at_NASA.html). NASA also maintains a
Speaker's Bureau to provide speakers for public inquiries, often
responding to requests to speak to women and girls.
NASA is committed to communicating the message that STEM is for
everyone using role models young women and girls have in areas outside
of STEM fields. One such example is collaboration with award-winning
recording artist Mary J Blige to encourage young women to pursue
exciting experiences and career choices through studying science,
technology, engineering and mathematics. A public service announcement
featuring Associate Administrator for Education and veteran NASA space
shuttle astronaut Leland Melvin and Blige can be viewed here: http://
www.nasa.gov/offices/education/programs/national/summer/media/
blige_melvin
.html
NASA is committed to creating opportunities for students in STEM
programs at the Nation's universities. The Motivating Undergraduates in
Science and Technology (MUST) project awards scholarships and
internships to undergraduates pursuing degrees in STEM fields. In FY
2010, the MUST project hosted 100 students, of whom 55 percent were
women and 27 percent of the scholars self reported being the first in
their family to attend college.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Mark Warner to
William. H. Gerstenmaier
Question 1. Mr. Gerstenmaier, with the retirement of the Space
Shuttle, the United States is in need of finding a means to transport
cargo and experiments to and from the International Space Station
(ISS). In order to serve this need, the United States will surely be
looking at possible launch sites to serve the ISS. It is my
understanding that the flight trajectory from the NASA Wallops Flight
Center to the ISS has some advantages, and could be viewed as more
favorable and efficient than other sites located around the U.S. What
do you see as the future of NASA Wallops in terms of its relationship
with the ISS?
Answer. NASA currently has two companies under contract to provide
resupply services to the ISS. One of the two companies, Orbital
Sciences Corporation, selected Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) as its
launch location for ten scheduled missions (two development flights and
eight cargo flights). By virtue of Orbital's selection, WFF will be
providing integration and testing services and launch operations
support for 2-3 launches annually for the duration of Orbital's
existing contract, and potentially longer.
Question 1a. What benefits does NASA Wallops have in serving the
ISS?
Answer. Due to the inclined orbit of ISS, only two established U.S.
launch sites are suitable to support resupply missions, the USAF's
Eastern Range in Florida, and NASA's Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) in
Virginia. The geometry of the ISS orbit results in a slight technical
advantage for launches conducted from WFF, allowing additional mass to
be lifted to the same orbit using a comparable rocket. In addition, as
a NASA facility, WFF offers the opportunity to leverage already-funded
NASA launch range and institutional capabilities, resulting in cost
savings. The current arrangement of two contractors operating from
different launch sites also provides NASA with increased flexibility
and reliability, assuring that critical resupply needs are not
interrupted due to launch range schedule conflicts, a launch vehicle
fleet technical issue, or facility damage resulting from severe
weather.
Question 2. Mr. Gerstenmaier, as we have previously discussed,
there is a lot of promise in pharmaceutical research in the
microgravity environment of low-Earth orbit in which the International
Space Station operates. Can you provide a status update on your efforts
for pharmaceutical research in micro-gravitational environments?
Answer. The best known of the recent pharmaceutical projects using
the ISS--the vaccine development work of Astrogenetix--has completed
flight experiments needed to identify mutant bacterial strains the
company believes will enable the development of effective vaccines
against Salmonella and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus
infection. Astrogenetix is seeking venture funding to support clinical
trials and further development.
Future ISS-based research in pharmaceutical development will be
conducted through the organization selected in 2011 to manage non-NASA
use of the ISS National Laboratory, the Center for the Advancement of
Science in Space (CASIS). The initial CASIS Board of Directors includes
a cross-section of leaders from several scientific disciplines and
pharmaceuticals research. CASIS is currently developing lines of
research identified by a panel of biomedical scientist from a survey of
prior space research as holding significant promise for commercial
participation, and the 7-member board recently named will select an
additional 8 members with the intent of including prominent individuals
from various industries.
Question 2a. Are pharmaceutical companies interested in partnering
on this initiative?
Answer. CASIS, through the science team assembled to steer the
development of its pharmaceutical research plans, has conducted surveys
to identify corporate interest in new research thrusts. There is an
interest and recognition on the part of industry of the value of
pharmaceutical research in the microgravitational environment, and the
level of corporate interest, and corporate willingness to invest in
space research, is a major factor in selecting new research projects.
It does take time, however, to translate that interest into investment.
Question 2b. What obstacles are you encountering in seeing that
this research gets done?
Answer. Some research projects involve new operational challenges.
The upcoming experiments with mice on the ISS, for example, will be the
first experiments on the ISS with rodents, and the mice will be flying
for the first time in a SpaceX Dragon capsule. Another obstacle is the
increasingly cautious investment climate for commercial research and
development, including pharmaceutical research. The pharmaceutical
industry is scaling back its expenditures in basic research, and
focusing on more mature concepts. They're looking for comprehensive
evidence to justify investments. That is a challenge in an exploratory
field like space biology.
______
Response to Written Question Submitted by Hon. Amy Klobuchar to
James D. Royston
Question. Mr. Royston, in your testimony you stated that CASIS is
currently working with NASA regarding the handling of Intellectual
Property and Data Rights. As you said, it is paramount to get this
right in order to secure commitments from commercial users. For some of
these potential users, the assurance that their IP is safe and
protected could be the difference in deciding whether or not to conduct
research and development on board Station. Ultimately, the IP issue
could very well determine the success CASIS has in its overarching goal
of maximizing ISS utilization. What is CASIS doing to provide this
assurance to companies, that if they choose to do research with ISS NL
their IP is safe and secure?
Answer. CASIS is working with NASA to establish a legal regime that
protects researcher data rights and intellectual property in compliance
with applicable Federal law. Without such guarantees, commercial
interests are unlikely to commit to any significant use of the ISS
National Lab. Efforts are ongoing and expectations are that a solution
will be found that will encourage commercial use of station.